Hollywood Dick

Wag The Dog

2012-01-22T14:27:00.000-08:00

"The bullshit piles up so fast on the Internet you need wings to stay above it."

I have been 'between assignments' (aka unemployed) for the past month or so. Consequently, I have been spending way too much time on the internet. And it's driving me crazy. Why? Because it's completely overrun with bullshit. It seems that at least once a day I see something posted on Facebook that is totally untrue, but has been accepted as gospel by otherwise intelligent, well-meaning individuals.

They believe it because it was posted by someone else whom they know and/or trust. They believe it because it reinforces their ideology. They believe it because it makes fun of someone they dislike. They believe it because it has a funny picture/cartoon and a clever slogan. The believe it because they want to.

But it's bullshit.

Here's an example: There's a internet meme going around called Reverse Stereotype, it's basically a photo of Snoop Dogg and Martha Stewart with the caption, "Think about which one of these two has done time." Another version, titled Stereotypes Are Awesome, has the same photo with a different caption: "But only one of them is a convicted felon."

Funny, right? 'Cause Martha, the whitebread media mogul did time in the Federal Pen for lying about a stock deal, while Snoop, the dreadlocked gangsta rapper is an upstanding family man and certified high-school football coach. So much for your bourgeois preconceptions. I'll give you a second while you recover from having your mind totally blown.

One problem though. Turns out Snoop also happens to be a convicted felon, who has 'done time' on various occasions and has a criminal record as long as your gang-tatted arm. I'm not saying Snoop is better or worse than Martha. I'm just saying that this stupid 'meme' that keeps getting posted and reposted and 'shared' and 'liked' is a big crock of bullshit.

But that doesn't seem to matter. The truth doesn't matter. Facts don't matter. The only thing that matters is that it seems like it should be true, as long as we don't have to think too much about it. That's the chief characteristic of bullshit: it seems true and it fits in with what we want to be true. So we swallow it.

A few years ago, when George W. Bush was president, I thought we had reached the pinnacle of bullshit. Bush was a master practitioner of the art of bullshit. It was his defining talent. He could sling it like nobody's business. Talk about memes, picture Bush standing on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln, beneath the red, white & blue banner proclaiming: "Mission Accomplished!" It don't get more bullshitty than that.

Or does it?

When I've had my fill of brainless internet memes, I turn on the TV to see what's happening in the rest of the world. Bad idea. Turns out we are in the midst of presidential primary season, and there is no greater arena for the slinging of bullshit than presidential politics. And there is no greater slinger of presidential political bullshit than the amazing Newton Leroy Gingrich. Did I say Bush was good? He was an amateur. Gingrich is the DaVinci of bullshit. So inventive, so creative, so prolific that he puts all others to shame.

Consider this recent achievement: At the South Carolina debate, when John King of CNN asked Gingrich about wanting an open marriage with ex-wife number two, Gingrich turned the tables on him by accusing the media of being "destructive, vicious and negative," and said he was "appalled" that King would even ask such a question. The hyper-sympathetic crowd roared its approval, and Newt scored huge points. Two days later, he won the South Carolina primary.

Keep in mind, this is the same guy who, as Speaker of the House, called for the impeachment of Bill Clinton for having an affair in the White House, while at the same time Newt was having an extramarital affair with his current wife. Oh, and he was having an affair with ex-wife number two while married to ex-wife number one -- the one he divorced when she got cancer. The same guy who has helped place 'family values' and defense of the 'sanctity of marriage' at the center of our political dialog. That guy. He's "appalled."

Of course, none of that matters, because Gingrich knows that we don't care about the facts. We only care about what sounds good at the moment. And his attack on King and the "media" in general sounded good. It sounded so good that it got played and replayed on every major and minor news outlet in the country, not to mention posted and reposted all over the internet.

And that's the real genius of it. Gingrich took a potentially sticky situation and spun it into a nationwide media blitz and went from dark horse to primary landslide in two days. And he did it all by himself, on the spur of the moment, and for free.

Using nothing but bullshit.

In the great Barry Levinson movie, Wag The Dog, political spin doctor Robert DeNiro invents an election-eve war with Albania to distract voters from a presidential sex scandal. He hires Hollywood producer Dustin Hoffman to 'produce' the war and together they pull off a public relations coup by convincing the country that a war is actually taking place. When confronted with the fact that there really is no war, DeNiro replies, "Of course there's a war -- I saw it on TV."

But Gingrich has gone DeNiro's spin doctor one better. Don't tell him there's no war: "Of course there's a war -- I said it on TV."

The tail is now wagging the dog.

Both Sides Now

2011-12-20T08:11:00.001-08:00

There are two songs I remember learning in fifth grade music class. One was Hava Nagila and the other was Both Sides Now. Hava Nagila was just a lot of fun to sing, but Both Sides Now was deep. It started out like another fluffy pop song, "rows and flows of angel's hair and ice cream castles in the air..." But by the third verse, it had turned into a philosophical meditation on the vicissitudes of experience. "It's life's illusions I recall..." Pretty heavy stuff for fifth grade.

At the time, Both Sides Now was known as a Judy Collins song. She had a big hit with it and even won a grammy. But the song was written by Joni Mitchell. I finally heard Joni sing it years later when it appeared on her live album, Miles of Aisles. Joni also wrote the classic song Woodstock, which became the anthem of the Hippie movement as recorded by CSN&Y. But I first heard Joni's rendition at a midnight showing of the fairly obscure concert movie, Celebration at Big Sur. Joni's Woodstock was dark and moody and complex, very different from the up tempo, rocked-out version I was used to. Nevertheless, I thought it was pretty cool.

I didn't know much about Joni back then. She was that hippie chick who sang, "they paved paradise and put up a parking lot." She was Graham Nash's girlfriend from the song Our House. She was a folkie from Canada who wrote pretty songs and played acoustic guitar. I didn't hear a lot of her songs on the radio, or if I did, they were being sung by someone else. She was always somewhere in the background, like a groupie.

When I got to college, though, I was introduced to the real Joni. And it wasn't by some doe-eyed coed hoping to test my feminist sensitivity. Instead, I learned about Joni from my freshman hallmate Mitch, who despite his alpha-male-jock tendencies had a real soft spot deep down inside. He played me Joni's scathingly personal masterpiece, Blue, and I knew I was in the presence of a true artist. Like so many others, I was knocked out by the line, "I could drink a case of you.. and I would still be on my feet." Such an achingly beautiful voice, such painfully intimate lyrics, such deceptively brilliant songwriting.

But there was so much more to Joni than that.

Blue came out in 1971. By the time I got to college, Joni had moved on. Frustrated with the parochialism of the folk-rock scene she had helped invent, she went searching for musicians who could appreciate the complexity and nuance of her writing. She teamed up with sax player Tom Scott and his jazz band to record Court and Spark, which combined elements of jazz and rock and folk, and really any kind of music. For Joni, it's all fair game. And though people still tried to put her music in to certain categories, or dismiss it for not being what they expected, Court and Spark became one of Joni's most popular albums.

I saw Joni perform again when she appeared in The Band's farewell concert film, The Last Waltz. She did a litte backup singing on Neil Young's Helpless, then came out into the spotlight with a new song called Coyote. I remember watching her play her acoustic guitar and I noticed she was playing a lot of weird sounding chords, but with very simple fingerings. I figured she must be in some kind of open tuning. I had just begun learning about open tunings myself, so I thought I had a handle on what she was doing. But I was only half right.

Meanwhile, Joni was still looking for musicians who could keep up with her increasingly innovative style of composition. She began collaborating with the amazing Jaco Pastorius, who I knew from the jazz group Weather Report. When Mitch played me the first track from Joni's Hejira album, I recognized those kooky Coyote chords again, but now they were being teased and cajoled and turned upside-down and inside-out by Jaco's impishly insistent bass. It was a perfect match. It seemed Joni had found someone who really could keep up with her.

Joni's next album, Don Juan's Reckless Daughter, moved her further into the experimental realm and attracted the attention of jazz giant Charlie Mingus. Mingus asked Joni to collaborate with him on what was to be his last project. After the Mingus album, Joni went on tour with some of her jazz cohorts and put out a live album called Shadows and Light. That was the first Joni Mitchell album I ever bought.

I finally got to see Joni in concert in Austin in the 80's. At this point she was working with Larry Klein, who in addition to being her bass player and producer, was also her husband. The concert was amazing. The union between Joni and Larry seemed just right. He didn't have the outlandishness of Jaco, which could tend to turn any tune into a Jaco solo, but he definitely had the chops to stay with Joni no matter where she went.

I remember reading an interview with Joni around this time, where she said something to the effect of: 'when I write something that really embarrasses me, I know I'm on the right track.' I've tried to locate that quote since then, but have been unable to find it, so I'm not even sure if she really said it. Nevertheless it has inspired me for all these years.

Recently, I was looking for a new song to play on the guitar. I was getting back into the open tuning thing again, as I had done a few years ago with Bob Dylan's Blood on the Tracks album. I came across Joni's Big Yellow Taxi, which is written in open E, and banged away on that for a while, then I checked out You Turn Me On, I'm A Radio, also in open E. It was interesting to see how Joni arranged the chord forms in such inventive ways. These seemingly simple songs had intriguing quirks and twists that made me want to learn more.

Further inquiry into Joni's catalogue led me to discover the incredible Joni Mitchell transcription database at JoniMitchell.com. It turns out that Joni has been playing around with guitar tunings since day one. And not just the usual open E, open D, open G. At last count, Joni has used over fifty different guitar tunings in her repertoire, most of which she came up with on her own. She has used so many different guitar tunings that she has forgotten some of them, and relies on her long-time guitar tech to keep track of them for her. She has used so many guitar tunings that she has invented her own system for classifying them, grouping them into "families" to help organize them.

It's pretty intense.

Perhaps I should explain. Most guitars are tuned in standard tuning, which is designed to allow players to switch from key to key, playing various chord patterns and scales, without having to change their tuning. With open tuning, you can tune the guitar to play a particular chord just by strumming the open strings, and then form related chords fairly easily, while taking advantage of the open strings. Alternate tunings may simply change the pitch of the guitar, say by tuning all of the strings lower or higher. Or you can just change one or two of the strings, or really any combination you want. The possibilities are endless.

Joni didn't invent alternate tunings, people have been using them for years. Her early use of the dulcimer, which is tuned to a kind of open D chord, may have influenced her. Some say her bout with polio, which affected the dexterity of her left hand, made it neccesary for her to retune her guitar for ease of fingering. But the way she has made alternate tuning an intrinsic part of her method is both inimitable and illustrative. Joni did not accept the instrument as it was handed to her, she transformed it into the instrument she wanted. Just as she has not accepted the role in life that was handed to her, but has worked all her life to transform herself into the person she was meant to be. I think that's the job of an artist.

And as I sit and clumsily grope my way through the elegantly simple arrangement of Both Sides Now, I think of Joni out in her back yard in British Columbia, tuning her strings to the cry of a heron and the rush of the surf, searching for yet another chord, trying to make music that says something new and different and honest.

I could spend the rest of my life trying to figure out what Joni has done with her guitar and I don't think I would even learn half of it. I guess I really don't know Joni at all. And that's the way it should be.

Home Sweet Home

2011-11-20T16:44:00.000-08:00

My parents just moved from their Florida townhouse into a condo. They went from five rooms and a veranda to two rooms and a flat screen. In the process they had to jettison a truckload of furniture, books, and collected memorabilia -- including a several boxes that I had stashed in their attic. I got a couple of phone calls during the process asking if I really needed to save every scrap of paper I had ever scribbled on. (Answer: Yes.) But in general, they are pretty good about getting rid of excess baggage. Much better than I am.

Of course this isn't the first time they've been through this process. Since they got married, they've moved six times. I wasn't around for their first move -- from an apartment in Bridgeport to their first house in Derby, Connecticut. But I do have some memories of that little red clapboard cottage.

One of my earliest memories is of my Mom and me lying on a blanket in the side yard. I felt something moving under me, and when my Mom picked up the blanket we saw a couple of snakes wriggling around underneath. Fortunately, a garbage man soon arrived to pick up the snakes and dispose of them. To me, the garbage man was like a superhero, who appeared out of nowhere with his big green barrel, vanquished the evildoers and then rode away on his giant noisy truck.

Another memory I have from that house is of walking through a massive snow-canyon whose frozen white walls loomed way above my head -- but it was really only a shoveled path from the front door to the driveway.

We moved from Derby to Warren, Ohio when I was about three or four. I don't remember anything about the move itself, but I do remember our house in Warren. It was a split-level with a half basement and a swing-set in the back yard. Since it had no fireplace, my Dad built a fake one -- complete with electric "burning" logs. My parents wanted to make sure that Santa had proper access to deliver our Christmas presents. I never knew it was fake until years later.

We weren't in that house very long. One of my strongest memories from there is falling down the basement stairs. It wasn't a full flight of stairs and I probably only fell down the last step, but it seemed like a huge deal at the time.

Our next move was to a two-story colonial in Louisville, Kentucky. That was the house I grew up in. It had a full basement, an attic, a backyard and a real fireplace. We had a piano in the den, a stereo in the living room and a two-car garage. It was a castle.

There are almost too many memories of that house to even begin to recall any. Everything happened there. It was like part of the family. There was even a room called the "family room."

Every square inch of that house holds a special memory: Finding my Dad's old childhood board games up in the attic. Discovering the secretly hidden Christmas presents in my parents' closet. The jellybean Easter egg hunts in the living room. Mom warming our coats in front of the stove on cold winter mornings. Watching my Dad work at his big gray workbench in the basement. Seeing fireworks from the roof of the garage. Rolling down the hill in the front yard. Sitting in front of the fire drinking hot cocoa after making a snow fort in the backyard. Washing the car in the driveway before my first date...

While I was in college, my Dad got a promotion and my parents sold the house and moved to Guilford, Connecticut. I really had no chance to say goodbye to that house in Louisville. The whole move happened when I was away at school. I did get a chance, though, to hang out with my Dad while he was house-shopping in Guilford.

We took a look at a kind of plain-looking place down a long driveway at the end of Riverview Drive. Not much to look at from the street. But around the back was a whole different world. The house sat on the edge of a tidal river in the middle of a salt marsh. Across the river was a bird sanctuary. It was beautiful. Trees, grass, birds, fish, tides, clouds, sun and snow, water and ice. All constantly changing -- always new yet always familiar.

After college I lived at the house on Riverview Drive on and off for the next few years. Whenever I needed a place to regroup after another unsuccessful foray into the real world, there was always my corner room overlooking the marsh. It was a good place to reconnect with myself. I could take the canoe out onto the river and disappear into nature for hours on end. Or just sit on the dock while the river rose, listening to the birds sing and the wind rustle through trees. When I finally moved out for good and went to New York, it was nice to know that I still had my own private nature sanctuary just a train ride away.

We packed a lot of memories into that house, too. My niece and nephews made some of their earliest appearances there. We had Christmases and Thanksgivings and even a wedding reception. In time, it came to feel just like home. My parents had managed to move most of our stuff up from Louisville. I had a stash of old memories boxed up in the basement. Things I wasn't ready to let go of. But like the salt marsh, life just keeps on changing.

Not long after his promotion, my Dad went through a major shake-up at work. He landed on his feet, but the era of corporate downsizing was just beginning and he decided to get out while the gettin' was good. Around the same time, my Mom inherited her aunt's condo in Florida. My folks spent a winter down there and realized they never had to suffer through another freezing Connecticut winter again. So they moved.

This time I was given a mandate to consolidate and/or discard all of the crap I had been storing in their basement, as there would be limited space for it in the new house. They had sold the condo and bought a townhouse in Osprey, Florida. No basement, but there was an attic above the garage. Two bedrooms, plus a pull-out couch in the den. And just a short walk to a pretty nice swimming pool. A nice place to visit, but I wasn't gonna live there.

The memories we created in Osprey were mostly associated with special occasions -- my parents' major birthdays, Christmas trips to Disney World, hanging out with Mom after her heart surgery. I once spent a couple of relaxing weeks there in the springtime and managed to crank out a screenplay in the process.

On my last visit to Osprey, a couple of years ago, my parents were already talking about moving. Once again I was directed to go through my stash of boxes and discard anything unnecessary. This time I actually managed to pare things down to what I thought was a few manageable boxes. But that didn't stop them from calling me up while they were packing to give me a heads-up that they were "consolidating" some more of my things.

This time there will be no special stash of my treasured archives at my parent's place. Everything they didn't want was loaded onto a truck and shipped up to Connecticut for my sister to deal with. Hopefully it will be safe there for another few years.

I just hope my sister doesn't decide to move.

Nail Soup

2011-10-15T19:52:00.000-07:00

So, I'm lying in the gutter the other night, on a street way up in the Hollywood Hills, trying to set up a video camera to record a couple of coyotes chewing on a stuffed dog.

Who says show biz isn't glamourous anymore?

No, it wasn't for a new reality show called "Extreme Cuddly Toys," though that does sound like a great idea. I was actually helping my friend Rosalee shoot a scene from the movie she's making, called Coyote Nights.

Rosalee is a very talented actress whom I met through my screenwriting group Deadline Junkies. She is also a single mom who raised two awesome sons. Part of the challenge of parenting a couple of teens in LA, was trying to steer them clear of the pervasive drug culture. It wasn't easy. In fact it was nearly impossible. Rosalee found herself literally surrounded by predatory drug dealers whose influence over her young sons terrified her.

She decided to get involved. So, she started asking questions, of her sons, of their friends, even of the drug dealers. And, as an actress and a filmmaker, she decided to videotape the whole thing so that maybe she could share their story with other parents and kids. With the help of her friend Kelly, a reality TV producer, she started making a documentary. She didn't know what she was going to find, she just knew she had to do something.

Cut to several years later: the boys are older now and have moved out of the house. Rosalee decides to start putting together the footage she shot during those tumultuous teenage years. But there are pieces missing -- you can't always have your camera with you when dramatic events take place. The most crucial scene was never captured: the night Rosalee and her boys saw the coyotes attacking the neighbor's dog.

Rosalee has tried on numerous occasions to grab some shots of coyotes out on the street at night, but the damn things never stick around long enough for her to run inside and grab the camera. She's even taken to carrying the camera with her just in case she runs into some coyotes out on Mullholland Drive some night. Which, she does. But, alas, it was too dark and the coyotes were too fast.

Finally she realizes that she needs to bite the bullet and hire some professional coyotes. This being LA, that's not as unusual as you might think. But it is expensive. Damn expensive. Coyotes don't work cheap. They have a very good union.

So Rosalee needs to raise some money.

She signs up on a website called IndieGoGo, which provides a forum for independent filmmakers to solicit tax-deductible contributions via the internet. She emails all her friends and posts the link on Facebook, and, little by little, the donations start coming in. Rosalee is amazed. This dream she's been holding onto for so many years is beginning to look as if it is within reach. But even with the donations, she still needs more. She needs cameras and camera operators. She needs lights and vehicles. She needs permits and insurance. The closer she gets, the more difficult it seems.

One night at Deadline Junkies, she tells me that she feels bad about having to beg everyone she knows for money or time or equipment or advice. So, I tell her the story of Nail Soup:

A group of travelers stops for the night at a roadhouse. They are strangers who just happen to be on the same road together. They are tired and hungry but there is nothing to eat. An old tramp announces that he will make them all some nail soup, using a magic nail he has in his pocket. Just put it in some water and stir it up and soon everyone will have a nice hot bowl of nourishing soup for dinner. "Of course," says the tramp, "nail soup does taste better with some carrots chopped up in it. But we will have to make do without." One of the travelers, however, happens to have a few carrots, and into the pot they go. The tramp smiles, "You know what else goes well in nail soup -- a bit of potato." Sure enough, another one of the travelers produces a potato, and into the pot it goes. And so on, until everyone has contributed what little they have and the nail soup becomes a hearty stew which easily feeds them all.

Rosalee's film is like the nail soup. It begins with an idea, but it becomes a reality through the collaboration and generosity of her fellow travelers. Rosalee sent out more emails, hit up more friends for favors, found out a way to get the permit price reduced, and worked out a deal with the coyotes. So, last weekend, there we were: four members of Deadline Junkies with borrowed cameras and lights, two volunteer interns, one out-of-town visitor who probably had no idea what she was getting into, and two Hollywood coyotes with their entourage -- all to help make Rosalee's vision into a reality.

And as with the nail soup, we all came away feeling nourished -- knowing we had contributed to something worthwhile and taken part in a moment of true creativity. It was an honor and a privilege to be lying in the street in the middle of the night trying to point a camera at a spot of light where two coyotes just might, if we are goddamn lucky this time, decide to hit their marks and do their bit.

There's still a long way to go before Coyote Nights is done, but that's the beauty of nail soup -- you never run out of it.

They say getting a movie made isn't a miracle. But it is a minor miracle.

Hollywood Dick's 169th Dream

2011-09-18T20:58:00.000-07:00

Based on actual events.

FADE IN:

INT. FAMILY HOME - EVENING

As in many dreams, I start out in my old house back in Louisville with my family. But the setting is fluid, shifting from one locale to another. Now I'm at my parent's place in Maine. Now I'm in my Malibu beach house. (Or more accurately, my Malibu Dream House.)

I am very sad. I have come to a decision. I am going to leave California and go back home. I am giving up on my "dream" of becoming a screenwriter. The decision weighs very heavily upon me. I can barely speak.

CUT TO:

EXT. DOWNTOWN LA - NIGHT

I am on my way to a special event: a movie screening, or a premier. I know the exact location, but I can't seem to get there. I am in an unfamiliar part of town. It is dark. The streets are confusing.

I find myself on the iconic North Broadway Bridge, with its rows of Beaux-Arts lampposts curving off into the night. It's like a scene from a movie. Like a scene from a hundred movies, where the hero is all alone and doesn't know where to turn. And the city is big and lonely and unforgiving.

I make my way through a series of alleys and side-streets filled with shady characters and lowlife types. I am a little apprehensive, but try to appear undaunted.

Despite the fact that I am totally out of my element, I feel like I know where I am going. I feel like I am getting somewhere.

I must navigate a series of confusing twists and turns, but eventually I arrive at…

CUT TO:

INT. PRIVATE CLUB - NIGHT

I am in a large, well-lit room at some kind of crazy party with a bunch of people I don't know. Everyone is drinking and talking and laughing.

A man approaches me from out of the crowd. He seems to know me. He is smiling and friendly. His face is slightly familiar -- like someone I might have seen on TV or in a movie. Apparently his job is to 'guide' me through the party, and keep me from misbehaving.

I have a glass in my hand, but it is empty. I go to the bar and order a drink. The bartender tells me that I have been cut off.

My 'guide' reappears and takes the empty glass away from me. I look around and see that everyone else is having a good time. I just want to get out of there...

DISSOLVE TO:

INT. CAFE - NIGHT

Small groups of people sit at tables, eating dinner and generally enjoying themselves. I am on a bench over against the wall. There is a stage at one end of the room.

A waiter confronts me. He seems to think I am someone else -- or that I am not who I am supposed to be. I do not know what to tell him.

Someone hands me a guitar and tells me to play. I take the guitar and strum a few chords. I feel confident. At last I have something that I know how to do.

I begin to play a song, but one of the guitar strings breaks. I try to fix it but decide that it is futile. I set down the guitar and walk away.

CUT TO:

INT. BACK ROOM - NIGHT

I end up in a small room in the back of the cafe, where I meet a beautiful woman. She has a great smile and seems glad to see me. Then she laughs and tells me that I have to leave right away. She will help me escape -- the only way out is through the window.

We try to open the window, but it only comes up a little bit. Just a crack. Not enough to get through. I keep tugging on the window but it won't budge...

FADE OUT.

...and then I woke up.

Fuck Off Day

2011-08-16T23:59:00.000-07:00

Some lessons you have to learn the hard way -- and even then they don't always stick.

Back when I lived in Washington DC, I was going through a long and confusing breakup with a woman I had been seeing for several years. Part of what made it confusing was her notion that we should remain friends after we broke up. This made no sense to me, and I mistook her attempts at friendship as possible signs of getting back together.

One such misunderstanding occurred when she invited me to run with her in a ten-mile road-race she'd entered. Actually, she'd planned on running with a "friend," but when her "friend" dropped out at the last minute, I was invited to take her "friend's" place, since they'd already paid the registration fee.

Of course I jumped at the chance. It was a golden opportunity to spend some quality time with her and show off one of my better qualities. I'd been running since high school and considered myself a better than average road-racer. And ten miles was just about my favorite distance. Or at least, it had been at one time. In fact I hadn't been running a lot of distance lately. Maybe a few miles now and again in the park. But, I'd logged a lot of miles in my day and I figured I could go the distance.

She, on the other hand, had been putting in a lot of mileage. While we were dating, I don't think I ever saw her run more than a few steps at a time. But apparently, without the distraction of having me around any more, she had become an avid distance runner. And she had been training specifically for this event.

Me, not so much.

The race was held on a perfect fall day -- nice and cool. The course covered a fairly flat section of Rock Creek Park, pretty much five miles out and five back. Piece of cake. I met her at the start. She seemed pleased to see me. I was psyched to see her and ready to show her how, now that she was a runner too, we had even more in common than before. We would run together, encourage each other, endure hardship and pain, sweat and struggle together. And in the end, we would form a stronger bond than ever.

It was a foolproof plan.

For the first few miles, it seemed to be working. We ran along together, chatting, getting into a groove, settling into a rhythm. She was in pretty good shape, too. She started out a little faster than I expected. I had thought we might begin at a nice leisurely jog, and that she would probably need to rely on my years of road-racing experience to help set a proper pace. However, after a few miles, she seemed to be the one setting the pace and I was pretty much just trying to stay with her.

At the halfway point, she started to pull away from me. I reluctantly told her to go ahead, I just needed to get my second wind. I would be fine. So, off she went -- on her own, moving ahead until she was almost out of sight. And then, finally, she was gone.

The next five miles were grueling. I was dying. But I couldn't stop. I had to keep going. Maybe she would slow down and I would catch up to her. At the very least I had to make a good showing at the finish line.

I began to face the fact that I was in no shape for a ten mile race. I wasn't even running anymore -- I was just punishing myself. I could tell I was doing major damage to my knees, but I just couldn't give in.

I still had my pride.

I actually did catch up with her at the end. But by that time I could barely stand. I clumsily tried to lean on her for support, but she pulled away uncomfortably. I was in serious pain, hobbling through the chute to the check-in table. By now I had given up on impressing her and was just going for sympathy. But I wasn't getting any. She seemed put off by my suffering. After we picked up our race t-shirts, she pretty much ditched me.

For the next few weeks, every step I took felt like someone was jamming a jagged knife right through my kneecap. Every agonizing jolt was an excruciating reminder of exactly how stupid I can be. It was months before I could walk without pain. I couldn't run for almost a year. For a while I thought I might never run again.

But, eventually, I recovered and lived to run again. Lesson learned.

Or was it?

Last weekend the company I work for had its annual summer beach party, known officially as "Fuck Off Day." They reserve a spot on the beach in Malibu and we all take the day off and hang out. Some folks just sit and enjoy the sun. Some play volleyball. And some fools go swimming in the ocean.

Not that swimming in the ocean is foolish. But this particular spot happens to have a really gnarly beach break. I found that out last year when I tried to do a little body-surfing and got badly trounced by a real butt-stomper of a wave. I was dashed against the sand like a rag doll and pummeled like a little punk.

This year, I promised myself I wouldn't be so reckless. I would respect the surf. Of course I still planned on going swimming, I just wasn't going to tempt Poseidon by being overly bold or incautious.

As luck would have it, when I got to the beach I ran into a lovely young woman who said she needed a swim buddy. And not just any lovely young woman -- this woman also happens to be a producer on the show I am about to start working on. Essentially she's my new boss. A quick dip in the ocean offered the perfect opportunity to bond with her and show her how youthful and vigorous I am. See, TV is a young person's game and I don't want to be seen as an old codger. Especially by my new boss. Especially by my hot, young new boss.

So off we ran into the surf. Oh, did I mention, it was freakin' cold. How cold? The kind of cold that when it hits you, it sucks every ounce of energy right out of your body. But she didn't seem to mind it at all. She swam out beyond the breakers and I followed. I was now literally in way over my head. She mentioned that she lives near the beach and goes swimming in the ocean every morning before work.

Now you tell me.

After bobbing and frolicking in the water for what seemed like a frozen eternity, she started heading to shore. Thank God. But then she decided to try and catch some waves. They were pretty good size, and like last year, they were breaking way too close to shore. She dropped into one and I watched her go under as it came down hard. I scanned the churning water and waited for her to pop up again. Fortunately she did, cheerful as ever. I was relieved.

Only then did I realize that I was right in the path of another big wave, poised to take me down. I quickly dove into the curl to try and swim through it, but I was too late. The wave slammed down right on top of me and folded me in half -- sending me tumbling ass over teakettle. I hit the bottom hard and got pounded and dragged along, practically losing my trunks in the process. Somehow I managed to hold on. I fought to right myself and pull up my trunks before the wave cleared, so that when I emerged I would appear unscathed and chipper. I finally struggled to my feet, still yanking on my trunks.

"I didn't know where you were!" she exclaimed.

That makes two of us.

Unbelievably, she still hadn't had enough, and managed to catch one more wave into shore. I stumbled after her, battered by another wave -- barely able to get back on my feet before she saw me. Thankfully, mercifully, we headed back up the beach.

Nevertheless, I felt pretty good about the whole adventure. Nothing broken. No humiliating accidents. Nobody drowned. I think I did manage to bond with my new boss and appear somewhat spry. All in all it was a success.

I toweled off and headed over to the lunch buffet the company had set up for us. I sat down at a table with a couple nearer to my own age. I told them about my little adventure in the water and they just laughed. I guess it did sound pretty ridiculous. Once again I was witlessly lured into trying to prove myself to someone who probably couldn't care less. And was soundly thrashed for my stupidity.

Maybe next time I'll be wiser.

Maybe.

CARMAGEDDON!

2011-07-17T12:16:00.001-07:00

I lit a cigarette on a parking meter and walked on down the road. It was a normal day.

Nothing like this has ever been attempted before: The closing of a ten-mile stretch of the "405" -- the busiest highway in the world -- for 53 consecutive hours! The ramifications are nearly unimaginable. Rerouting half a million cars into the surrounding streets will surely lead to a disaster of Biblical proportions. Paralyzing gridlock, looting, human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria!

I have decided to keep a log of my activities during this historic time. Future generations may look back on this weekend and wonder how we Angelenos survived. It certainly won't be easy. And if the worst should happen, I want to leave behind an accurate record of events exactly as they unfold. Perhaps tomorrow's civic leaders can learn from my experiences and work to prevent another potential cataclysm of this nature.

DAY ONE - Prelude

Friday, July 15th

9:34 a.m.

On my way to work. Laurel Canyon seems fairly clear so far -- except for the dumb-ass in the white Range Rover in front of me. Signal first, then slow down, then turn. Not all at once!

9:51: a.m.

Getting on the 101 is pretty smooth. Have to cross three lanes of traffic fairly quickly to get over to the 134 at the Bruce T. Hinman Memorial Interchange. No problem, except for one jerk in a Lexus who sees my turn signal as an invitation to speed up and prevent me from merging. Nice try, bitch.

10:18 a.m.

At work. The place seems pretty quiet. My boss hasn't shown up yet. Rumor is she's staying in Santa Monica. Could be a smart move. Everyone is doing their best to remain calm. But we all know that disaster is imminent.

2:07 p.m.

It's quiet. Too quiet. My supervisor, who lives on the west side, has decided to make a run for it. There are only a few of us left now. No reports of gridlock or mayhem. Yet. Indeed, the very lack of information is terrifying. We wait.

3:46 p.m.

I confer with a co-worker who advises me that, as I live near one of the key arteries connecting the valley and the west side -- the aforementioned Laurel Canyon Blvd. -- I might want to consider making my exit. I check the internet and learn that on-ramps to the 405 will begin shutting down at 7 p.m. Time for a command decision. It's now or never.

4:11 p.m.

The 134 is relatively clear, a slight tie-up at the Bruce T. Hinman Memorial Interchange, but that may have as much to do with the glare of the afternoon sun as with anything else. It feels like the calm before the storm.

4:37 p.m.

Crossing Mulholland -- now I'm starting to hit some traffic. It's slow going down the canyon. It's a good thing I left when I did. I start making plans for what to do when I get home. Maybe I should stop and buy provisions: bottled water, power bars, tequila -- bare essentials. You know how people panic when things get hairy.

4:52 p.m.

I manage to snag one of the last parking spaces on my street. Nice and shady. I leave the car knowing I won't be using it for the next two days. And while this is actually a fairly normal state of affairs, somehow the prospect fills me with a wistful sense of melancholy. Perhaps due to the very real possibility that, should things take an ugly turn, I may never have the opportunity to use my car again. I walk up the block to my building, not daring to look back.

5:33 p.m.

I check the internet for updates on the situation, but there is very little new information. Weird. Are they deliberately withholding the horror from the public? One can only assume. I take a quick inventory of the fridge and decide to put off my provision-gathering trip for now. I'm going to need to keep my wits about me in the coming hours. Time for a quick power-nap.

7:40 p.m.

I awaken to the shrill jangle of the telephone. Some stranded friend calling for assistance no doubt. I steel myself for the inevitable let-down -- I can't go running off to rescue someone who failed to take adequate precautions. Not with that sweet parking spot I landed. Turns out it's just some jackass taking a survey. Stupid telemarketers. Don't they know there's a crisis at hand?

8:07 p.m.

At the grocery store. The shelves still seem pretty well-stocked. For now. I stick to the salad bar. Best to stock up on fresh produce. In a few days there may be none left at all.

10:02 p.m

Finally getting some news reports. Things are eerily serene. Most of the on-ramps to the 405 have been blocked-off by now. No incidents of extreme road-rage are being reported. Cleary there is some kind of cover-up in the works. I flip from channel to channel, but the story remains the same. Peaceful. Calm. No problemo. Obviously it is a conspiracy.

11:05 p.m.

Second wave of news programs, and still no real stories regarding major gridlock or widespread panic. I become bored and drift off to sleep.

DAY TWO - Lockdown

Saturday, July 16th

10:35 a.m.

Slept in most of the morning. Need to conserve my strength for the coming ordeal. Woke to the sound of helicopters overhead. Probably patrolling for looters. Check TV for latest news, but all I find are infomercials. Thinking about getting a Power Juicer.

1:17 p.m.

I venture out onto the streets. Santa Monica Blvd. seems oddly deserted. I must have caught a lull. I walk up to Whole Foods for some basics: chicken dogs, soy milk, pasta. I think I will also pick up some coconut oil, because it's supposed to be good for everything. You never know

1:42 p.m.

Whole Foods is not very busy, although I do get hung-up at the express checkout by one of those annoying couples who divide their stuff in half and stake out two different lines, then one of them jumps over whichever line moves fastest. I hate that.

2:09 p.m.

Heading home. As I near my street, I consider going down the block to check and see how my car is doing. But I decide that it would be better not to tempt myself. I need to stay focused.

2:13 p.m.

Purely out of habit, I check my mailbox and surprisingly, I find that I have mail. I had assumed that delivery would be suspended. Could be the last mail I receive for a while. Or maybe ever.

5:38 p.m.

Must have dozed off after lunch. Important to stay rested. And hydrated. Woke up to check the news reports, but they keep dishing out the same old propaganda about everything being just fine. I'm not buying their malarky anymore. I decide to ignore the news from now on. Trust my instincts. Really need to hunker down and ride this thing out. Maybe I'll watch a movie.

DAY THREE - Aftermath

Sunday, July 17th

9:21 a.m.

Last night I cooked up some pasta and watched a few movies on demand. L.A. Story, Speed, and Falling Down. Ate two bags of microwave popcorn. Tried putting some coconut oil on the popcorn. Not good. Went to bed with a stomach ache and dreamed about hordes of angry pedestrians clamoring for a seat on the last bus out of Santa Monica.

11:05 a.m.

Not sure if this is a hoax or what, but Mayor Villaraigosa is on TV claiming that the crisis is over and the 405 will be reopening within the hour. So the question is: What were they really doing out there? This whole "freeway closure" story must have served as a diversion for some other massive undertaking. The mayor is answering a bunch of stupid questions about timetables and budgets, but no one is asking the most obvious question: What are you trying to cover up? This is maddening!

11:30 a.m.

The 405 Freeway has officially reopened, 17 hours ahead of schedule. Or is it? Maybe this was the plan all along. Make everyone think there's going to be a huge "construction project" while meanwhile, something else entirely is going on. But what? I have a few theories:

Installation of Commuter Tracking Devices (CTDs) and/or mind-control technology;
Covert transportation of Alien Artifacts from the Santa Monica Airport to the Getty Center;
Illuminati Death Race.

Who knows what really happened. We may never find out. This whole ordeal has been highly stressful. I think I'll go for a drive.

Technology

2011-06-19T12:08:00.001-07:00

I got my first computer around the time I was transitioning out of the 'Lego' phase of human nerd development and into the 'science-kit' phase. It was, in fact, a science-kit computer, which was basically a rudimentary circuit board which I 'programmed' by connecting pieces of wire into a series of pinholes. If I wired the circuits correctly, I could perform simple calculations by placing a pre-printed strip of paper in front of the row of bulbs at the top of the board, and sliding a set of sliders into place. The bulbs would light up the numbers and the answer would magically appear. Pretty crude, but I thought it was amazing.

When I was in high-school, we had access to a 'computer lab' where we learned to program a computer using BASIC. The computer was actually a teletype connected to mainframe at the University of Louisville, which we accessed through a timeshare system using a dial-up connection. And when I say dial-up, I mean we literally had to dial a rotary phone and place it into a special cradle so it could 'talk' to the mainframe. I really didn't learn much programming in the computer lab, though. We mostly just used the phone to make crank calls.

In college, I took a class where I learned to program micro-computers to use in the composition of electronic music. I say I 'learned' to do that, but I honestly don't remember much at all from that class. I was a lot more interested in making music than learning programming. I spent most of my time playing around with the ARP 2600 synthesizer, which was programmed using patch cords, not unlike an old telephone switchboard, or my science-kit computer.

My first 'home' computer was a Commodore 64 that I plugged into an old black and white TV set to use as a monitor. The CPU was contained within the keyboard, and the only other piece of hardware was the external 5.25 inch floppy drive, about the size of a child's shoe box. I used the C64 to to create a spreadsheet to balance my checkbook, but not much else. My biggest achievement with it was taking apart the floppy drive when one of my disks got stuck and successfully putting it back together.

When first I started writing screenplays, I had to rely on borrowed computers. At one of my paralegal jobs, I had access to an early IBM Thinkpad, which I managed to smuggle home with me. I wrote my first screenplay on it, using good old WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS.

Yes, those were the days, my friends.

Eventually, I broke down and bought myself a Compaq notebook with 170 MB of memory (total) that ran Windows 3.1 and had a PCMCIA slot, allowing me internet access with a 56k modem. I logged on to AOL, picked out my screen name (MYRDHINN) and never looked back. I was now part of the technology revolution!

It was an exciting time to be alive.

By the time I made my move to Hollywood, I was ready for a technology upgrade. The little Compag notebook was not suitable for writing screenplays. I bought my first PC, an eTower 400i, running Windows 98 with a whopping 4 gigabytes of memory and 250 MB of RAM. And with a few minor upgrades, I have been using that machine ever since. I increased the RAM, added a CD burner, installed an Ethernet port, and replaced the power supply.

And the damn thing just kept on working.

For several years, however, I have been contemplating getting a new computer. I figured I should have a laptop so that, if need be, I could write my screenplays from anywhere -- say, on location on a movie set, for example. I watched and waited as the technology improved and the prices dropped, until it got to the point where they were practically giving them away.

And then I made my move.

The machine I am using now beats the pants off my old computer. It has tons of memory, it's super-fast, it has WiFi, and it can go anywhere. When I wanted to move all of my files from the old computer to this one, I was able to store over 4000 separate files on a thumb drive. The total amount of memory required is less than the available RAM memory on this computer. It has a webcam and a DVD burner. I can write screenplays, record music, make movies and video-chat with my family.

And who knows what else?

It's a far cry from the crude science-kit computer I once found so amazing. But it's still just a tool. An unbelievably powerful tool, but still just a tool.

The question is: what am I going to do with it?

Sidney Lumet

2011-05-15T15:01:00.001-07:00

One night, back when I was at Wesleyland, I was walking down Foss Hill and I saw a helicopter sitting in the middle of Andrus Field. I went over to check it out and found the pilot sitting in the cockpit. I asked him what he was doing there and he told me he had been hired by Sidney Lumet to fly up from New York for a speaking engagement on campus that evening. Although I knew who Lumet was, somehow I had missed hearing that he was coming to Wesleyan. I would have liked to see him. I thought it was pretty cool that he flew up from New York in a helicopter to come talk to a bunch of film students. Who does that?

One of the first times I ever went to see a movie without my parents was when I went to see a Sean Connery movie called The Anderson Tapes with our next-door neighbors. It was a big deal going to see a real grown-up movie on my own and I was pretty excited. I still remember certain scenes from that movie very vividly -- it had a real impact on me. But mostly I remember being very upset afterwards. I don't know why, but I couldn't get to sleep. I just kept thinking about the movie and the characters and the feeling that it was all so real and so intense. The Anderson Tapes really freaked me out. It was a Sidney Lumet movie.

A few years later, our church youth group leader took a bunch of us to see Al Pacino in Serpico, the true story of a New York cop who refuses to go on the take and ends up getting shot in the face by his own guys. We had to get permission slips from our parents because it was rated R, and some kids weren't allowed to go. But I had already read the book, so my parents didn't see any harm. I loved Serpico. I thought Pacino was the coolest. And I loved New York -- Serpico's New York, gritty and grimy and hip and tough. Serpico blew me away. Another Lumet movie.

At Wesleyan I saw several Lumet movies, and began to realize just how great the man in the helicopter really was.

Murder on the Orient Express was an adaptation of an Agatha Christie novel featuring the amazing Albert Finney as Hercule Poirot, along with an all-star cast that includes Sean Connery and Ingrid Bergman. Hard to believe it was made by the same director that made The Anderson Tapes and Serpico, but Lumet was never confined to one type of subject matter or genre. Whatever the tale, Lumet brings it to life with intelligence and style, using his formidable craft to serve the story in any way he can.

Lumet's next movie was about a guy who robs a bank to pay for a sex-change operation for his boyfriend. These days that may seem like no big deal, but when Dog Day Afternoon came out you just didn't have a lot of bisexual movie heroes winning over the hearts of audiences across America. Of course it helps when you have Al Pacino playing the bank-robber, Sonny. But it is Lumet's storytelling genius that puts us so squarely in Sonny's corner right from the get-go, so that when he reveals his true motive for the robbery it makes him even more sympathetic, rather than less.

Lumet was on a roll. His next film was Network. What can you say about Network? Brilliant script by Paddy Chayefsky. Brilliant performances by Peter Finch, William Holden, Faye Dunaway, Robert Duvall, Ned Beatty. Brilliant directing by Lumet. What was once considered cutting edge satire is now reality TV. It doesn't get much better than this.

Lumet went back to his roots in the theater for Equus, adapting the prize-winning play with Richard Burton as the psychiatrist. In a way, the film's exploration of a troubled psyche reminds me of another Lumet gem, Long Day's Journey Into Night, which stands as one of the greatest theatrical adaptations ever filmed. In both, you have characters striving to understand the workings of a tortured mind, only to come face to face with their own dark secrets.

I've always loved courtroom dramas. In The Verdict, Lumet teamed up with Paul Newman and screenwriter David Mamet to give us one of the best ever made. Every moment of this movie is worth savoring. And Newman's final summation to the jury is a perfect example of great writing, great acting and great directing. Lumet, Mamet and Newman should have been given Oscars for that scene alone.

Speaking of courtroom dramas, the first time I served on jury duty, I found myself in a situation similar to Henry Fonda's in 12 Angry Men. Everyone else on the jury thought the defendant was guilty, but I wasn't convinced. I had to explain my position to the other jurors, and even though it wasn't as volatile or dramatic as the movie, I couldn't help thinking of Henry Fonda's performance as I laid out the facts of the case. I was in an awkward position, but I had Fonda as my guide. Eventually I convinced everyone that the facts just weren't there to support a conviction, and we let the guy go free. He'll never know it, but Sidney Lumet saved his ass that day.

When I was getting ready to direct my short film Dante's View, I read Lumet's book Making Movies. In it, he describes the process he used to shoot 12 Angry Men. In order to give the feeling of the room closing in on the jurors during the course of their deliberations, Lumet decided to slowly lower the camera angle throughout the course of the movie, bringing the walls and ceiling more and more into the frame to loom over the actors. To accomplish this feat, he shot the movie completely out of sequence, getting every shot facing one wall, in order, from daytime to nightfall, slowly lowering the camera angle as he went, until he had all the shots he needed. Then he'd start over facing the next wall, repeating the process until he'd covered all four walls. This technique took tremendous planning and organization to match the lighting, the angles, the performances, everything. And when you watch the movie, it's seamless. Totally unnoticeable. But the feeling is there. That's a real director.

Lumet's final movie, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, shows him at the top of his form until the last -- shooting on HD video in the quick and economical style he developed in his early years in television. Lumet insisted on calling the movie a melodrama, which has become a dirty word in the movie business, but once again it shows his mastery of the material. By focusing on the emotional impact of the events on the characters, Lumet elevates what could be a hum-drum crime drama to operatic level, serving the story in the best way possible.

I never did get to see Sidney Lumet, the man in the helicopter, but he's always been there, for all these years, showing me how to do it right.

Acting!

2011-04-17T13:28:00.000-07:00

"We're actors - we're the opposite of people."

I'm not an actor, but on a few occasions I have pretended to be one.

In high school, I was put in charge of producing our senior class play, Oklahoma! Somehow, in addition to hiring the director and choreographer, overseeing set construction, props, costumes and lighting, arranging rehearsals, scheduling the performances, preparing the program, and building a 30-foot-wide stage extension, I was also persuaded to take a small role in the production.

I played Ike, one of the local hayseeds. Ike is basically part of the chorus, which meant a lot of loping around (i.e. 'dancing') and singing back-up parts. I did get a short solo in one song, about a half a verse, which was terrifying. But I managed to get through it without bringing the whole production to a halt.

All in all in was a lot of fun, plus I ended up taking one of the dancers to the prom, so I'd have to say it was success.

Several years later, I was living at my parents house in Connecticut, trying to figure out what to do with my life. Deep into my folk-singer phase, I was looking in the local paper for open mike nights, and I saw a notice for auditions for Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at the Puppet House Theater in Stony Creek. As a kid I had memorized every word to every song on the Joseph album, so I thought I would give it a try.

I went to the audition and sang one of my original folk tunes and somehow was selected for the part of Levi, Joseph's 'cowboy' brother. As Levi, I got to sing a whole song by myself. Which was cool, except that the song, One More Angel in Heaven, was not included on the record I had memorized as a kid -- so I had to learn it from scratch.

In addition to my solo turn, I was also part of the chorus, which meant a lot of floundering around (i.e., 'dancing') and singing back-up parts.

The show ran for three weeks. Each night, about midway through the show, I would saunter out on stage with my guitar and launch into my solo lament -- just trying to get through it without screwing up. The next day, the director would give the cast his notes. He always gave me the same one: "You need to go bigger." I had no idea what that meant and was basically too dumb to ask.

Finally, on the night of the last performance, I decided to stretch out a little. During the climactic verse, I walked almost all the way across the stage and paused dramatically before delivering the song's punchline: "It takes a man who knows not fear, to wrassle with a goat."

Instead of the usual smattering of chuckles from the audience, this time I got a big laugh. Afterward, the director came up to me and said, "That's what I've been trying to tell you all along!"

Acting!

When I lived in Brooklyn, my roommate, Jon, was serious trained actor as well as an acting teacher. I learned a lot about acting just by being around him. I was very impressed with all of the preparation he would go through while learning a new role. He put a lot more thought into the character than I ever did as a writer. Made me think I needed to do a little more homework.

Around the same time, I was dating a lovely aspiring actress. Ever supportive, I went to see every one of her performances. It always amazed me how she could transform herself into a completely different person onstage. Oh sure, I knew about the various techniques involved, I even read Stanislavsky's An Actor Prepares, but knowing about it and actually doing it were worlds apart for me. I just wasn't that kind of animal.

I have enough trouble just being me.

These days, I belong to a group of screenwriters that meets every week to hold staged readings of our works-in-progress. I have become a kind of go-to narrator for the group, which means I read all of the descriptive parts of the screenplay -- but none of the dialog. We have trained actors for that. It's fun and makes me feel important, but it's not acting.

The other day, though, I was involved in a small production organized by some of the members of the group. They were shooting a short film to help promote a feature they want to produce, and they asked me to play a small, non-speaking role. I was flattered, but confused. Everyone else they had cast was a bona-fide actor. What was I doing in their company?

The short was about a wedding that goes awry. I was cast as the father of the bride, no doubt because I am so distinguished looking. I wore a tuxedo and got to parade around with a beautiful young actress on my arm. In my big scene, I walked her down the aisle, whereupon I was required to kiss her on the cheek and take my seat. What? Kiss her? For real? I felt like a total goofball, trying not to giggle. Fortunately, everything went smoothly. Then they had us do it again. And again. And again.

Acting is fun!

I thought was getting the hang of it. Just walk down the aisle, kiss the pretty girl and sit down. I can handle that. Well, almost. At one point the Director of Photography scolded: "Don't look at the camera!" Oops. That's probably one of the first things you learn in acting class. And it was a lot harder than you might think. I mean, where are you supposed to look? Apparently you look at your fellow actors. You know, like this is a real wedding and she's your real daughter, and there isn't a big movie camera pointed right at you.

Acting!

Eventually, I began to feel a little less fraudulent. It wasn't really that different from an actual wedding -- you get all dressed up and pretend like you know what you're doing. Besides, I had a little secret to help me play my part. I had just learned the night before that my niece Annie is pregnant. I was so excited and happy for her that I couldn't help looking like a very proud father of the bride.

No acting necessary.

Lent

2011-03-20T10:34:00.001-07:00

I'm not exactly what you would call a "religious" person. Oh sure, I went to Sunday School when I was a kid. Around the age of thirteen, I took part in a "confirmation" ceremony to become a member of the congregation of the Springdale Presbyterian Church in Louisville. At the ceremony, I was given a copy of the The Holy Bible with my name embossed in gold letters on the cover. I even went so far as to read the whole Bible from cover to cover. But, at some point, I kind of drifted away from Christianity and started developing my own belief system. I'm actually still working on that.

It's a process.

Meanwhile, there are some aspects of religion that still intrigue me. Like faith, for example. And forgiveness. And who's not a fan of love? I just felt like there was a lot of extra baggage involved with established religion that I didn't need to carry around for the rest of my life.

Lately, though, I've been thinking a lot about Lent. Growing up Protestant, Lent was always more of an abstract idea than a serious commitment. I mean, we didn't stop eating meat for forty days or anything like that. In fact, I don't really remember giving up anything for Lent. I remember hearing about it in Sunday School and maybe even considering it, but I don't think I ever actually took it to heart.

The basic idea of Lent is to give up something you care about to symbolically mirror the 40 days of fasting that Jesus underwent in the wilderness before embarking on his ministry. The practice of self-denial is supposed to help prepare the faithful for the celebration of Holy Week.

Or maybe it's more like a test -- the same way Jesus was tested by Satan during his time in the wilderness. Except instead of fasting for forty days and turning down the opportunity to rule the world, most people just give up eating chocolate or stop playing video games.

Either way, it's an interesting challenge. Can you give up something that you really enjoy for forty days?

This year, I was thinking about what I might give up for Lent -- kind of as an exercise in self-discipline. I tried to come up with something that would actually feel like a sacrifice. Problem is, I've already given up a lot of things, and I'm kind of down to the bare essentials.

One of the most common things that believers will give up for Lent is meat -- sometimes that means all animal flesh, and sometimes it just means red meat. I gave up eating red meat about twenty-five years ago, and except for a few occasions, I haven't had any since. Another common sacrifice is to give up dairy foods. I gave up dairy around the same time I gave up red meat. I haven't had a milkshake since the 80's.

And I really love milkshakes.

I've never been a coffee drinker or a cigarette smoker, so I can't give those up. Once upon a time, I dabbled in the use of so-called "recreational drugs," but that was, as they say, a long time ago in a a galaxy far, far away.

Several years ago, I went on a rather extreme diet, during which I gave up sugar, wheat, alcohol, processed foods and anything carbonated, fermented or containing yeast. That's a lot of stuff. I stayed on that diet for two years. Every once in a while, as a tune-up, I go on a modified version the diet. Last month, just for kicks, I gave up sugar and alcohol for 28 days.

Back when I decided to quit my paralegal job, I had to give up a few things as well. Like paychecks. And security. And going out to dinner. Or the movies. Or traveling. Or buying new clothes. Health insurance. Haircuts.

I feel like I've given up other things, too. Things that a lot of people take for granted. I never really had a career, never bought a house, never got married, never had kids. I guess I traded those things for the freedom to do what I want. I never really planned it that way -- I always figured I could have it all.

Sometimes I feel like I may have given up too much.

So maybe, in my own personal belief system, self-denial isn't really something I need to focus on. Instead, maybe I should spend the forty days of Lent coming up with ways to make my life more fulfilling. Maybe for me, the Lenten Season should be more about 'letting go' than 'giving up.' Like letting go of the notion that I have to punish myself for my lack of success as a writer by denying myself some of the basic necessities of life. Maybe it's time to 'give up' feeling like a failure.

I'm not saying it's gonna be easy. Just yesterday I went to Target to buy myself some new socks and underwear, as my current supply is sadly tattered and threadbare. And even though they weren't technically on sale, I did spend about twenty minutes comparing prices to determine which 'value pack' was the better deal. Some habits die hard.

Not that I want to start spoiling myself with extravagant luxury items like fancy designer boxer shorts. I just think it's a good idea to take a break from constantly worrying about whether I "deserve" something and maybe just do it without trying to rationalize or justify everything.

For example, I want a new pair of running shoes, but have been putting off buying them because the really good ones are so expensive. On the other hand, since running is good for me, I should go ahead and get them, right? Or is that a justification? Should I get the shoes because I want them or because I deserve them? Maybe I should wait until they are on sale.

This is new territory for me, so I may not get the hang of it right away.

It's a process.

Cairo

2011-02-14T22:17:00.001-08:00

Back when I lived in Washington, DC, I had a job working as a paralegal for a prestigious law firm. I was assigned to big case that went to trial in San Francisco, so I flew back and forth pretty often -- always on TWA. After a couple of years, I had racked up a pile of frequent flyer miles.

My girlfriend, Sue, was traveling in Europe that summer. She and I had planned to meet up in Paris, so I went down to the TWA travel agency to cash in my miles. I asked the agent if I had enough for a ticket to Paris and two tickets back home. Turns out I had more than enough. In fact, I had enough miles for two round-trip tickets to anywhere in the world -- including an open-ended stopover in Paris.

Anywhere in the world!

Where do you go when you can go anywhere in the world? I looked at a map showing every TWA destination. Hong Kong was the furthest. Bombay sounded exotic. There were so many others: Rome, Athens, Istanbul, Bangkok, Moscow. I wanted to see them all. But the one that I finally picked was Cairo.

I flew to Paris and met Sue, surprising her with the news that we were going to Cairo. She was thrilled. We stayed in Paris for a few days, then rented a car to tour through France, Switzerland and Italy for a couple of weeks. It was an amazing adventure, but the best was yet to come.

We planned our trip to Cairo using the Let's Go guide that had become our bible, with its listings of low-budget accommodations and must-see sights. We chose a cheap hotel in the center of Cairo, just off Tahrir Square, close to the Egyptian Museum, the Nile Hilton and the bus terminal. The shuttle from the airport dropped us off by the Hilton, so we had to walk across Tahrir Square and down a few blocks to the hotel. We lugged our bags along the crowded, narrow sidewalk, teeming with pedestrians and vendors. The street was jammed with cars, mostly taxis, every one of which was honking its horn in a seemingly random yet endless pattern. It was insane.

A spidery-looking man with a big smile appeared in front of us and offered to assist us with our bags. We were only about a block from the hotel, and I really didn't feel like handing over my bags to some crazy foreigner, so I politely told him we didn't require his assistance, but thanks anyway. He insisted. Again, I politely declined. He wouldn't give up. By now we were in sight of the hotel. He was getting a bit obnoxious at this point, so I asked him to please leave us alone. He stopped, his eyes widening into a furious glare as he sputtered: "You go to hell!"

Welcome to Cairo.

The "hotel" took up the top three floors of an old office building, reached by a rickety, claustrophobic elevator. I assumed it was hooked up to a pair of donkeys somewhere in the basement, but I was afraid to ask. The room was nice enough -- hell, for twelve bucks a night it was a palace. It had the distinction of having a western-style "shower" in the bathroom -- basically a pipe sticking out of the wall. We were informed that it was a good idea to turn on the "shower" well in advance of our ablutions, to give the water time to work its way up the pipes.

The windows looked out over the street, which, as I said, was filled with hundreds of horn-honking cars. Nonstop. The windows were open, it being August, and the sound of the car horns provided a constant cacophonous soundtrack, punctuated only by the periodic 'call to prayer' broadcast by loudspeaker from a nearby minaret.

Welcome to Cairo.

In the morning, we took breakfast on the rooftop, where the blazing sun drove the temperature well into the nineties by eight a.m. Hard-boiled eggs, olives, biscuits and hot tea gave us the fuel we needed for the day's adventures. First stop was the Egyptian Museum, a vast collection of amazing artifacts and antiquities, kind of like the underground chamber at the end of the movie National Treasure. It was a testament to a time of true greatness and achievement, long since buried in the desert sands.

We could have spent days in there, but we only had a week in Cairo.

After the museum we walked over to the Nile Hilton to poke around, and to cool off in the shady courtyard with some good old American Coca-Cola, served ice cold. The Hilton courtyard became our favorite hangout after a long day of sightseeing. And on one particularly hot afternoon, we even managed to bribe our way into the pool for a much-needed dip.

Thanks to the Let's Go guide, we found a great restaurant near the hotel that served a dish called kushari, a mixture of rice, lentils, chickpeas, and macaroni topped with salsa. It was very tasty and belly-filling and best of all, one bowl only cost a quarter. The seating was family-style and the clientele was made up of mostly working-class locals. Not too many tourists there. Quite a change of pace from the Nile Hilton. We ate there every night.

One day we took a minibus from Tahrir Square to Giza to see the pyramids. We went on a guided tour that took us deep within the Great Pyramid of Cheops. The air inside felt like it had been preserved for five thousand years. It was like going back in time. Outside, I climbed up onto the massive stones at the base of the pyramid, which is strictly forbidden, and Sue snapped my picture. We then trudged up to the only tourist restaurant within miles for a big glass of lemonade. In that heat, they could have charged me one hundred dollars a glass and I probably would have paid it. We stayed until evening to watch the spectacular Sound and Light show, then went back to the hotel to wait for the water to come up the pipe.

The next evening, after visiting the Muhammed Ali Mosque, we decided to explore a part of the city that wasn't on any tourist map. Actually, Sue decided to explore, I wanted to take a cab back to the Nile Hilton. But she felt that we needed to mix it up with the locals a bit to get a sense of the real Cairo. She was like that -- always up for a new adventure. It was one of the things I loved about her. So, off we went into the maze of mysterious and often nameless streets. We wandered around for a while and eventually discovered a narrow lane, far from the bustling thoroughfares, where vendors sold kebabs and falafel, fruit and vegetables, and people milled about unhurriedly. We sampled some juicy mango slices and bought a couple to bring back to the hotel.

At one point, a young man walked up to us and excitedly asked, "What nationality are you?" I wasn't sure what to say, fearing a replay of our encounter on our first day in town. Given that Americans can have a bad rep in certain countries, I was tempted to say we were Canadian. But, instead I blurted out the ugly truth: "American."

He took a step back. I half-expected to see the flash of a dagger, but instead he spread his arms wide and his face broke into a huge smile. He exclaimed:

"Welcome to Cairo!"

Later, back in our room, serenaded by the car-horn symphony from the street below, we savored the wonderful mangos while we waited for the gurgle of water to come chugging its way up to our shower-pipe. I was really beginning to like Cairo, for all its contradictions and peculiarities, it was a city with an amazing history and tremendous soul. It was hard to understand how a place that had once been the pinnacle of civilization could have fallen into such disarray. I wondered if that spark of greatness still existed somewhere in the streets of Cairo.

The other day, I turned on the TV and saw an amazing sight. Tahrir Square filled with throngs of jubilant people celebrating their liberation from thirty years of oppressive martial law. It was an inspiring moment that brought tears to my eyes.

Whatever happens now, one thing is certain, the people of Cairo, and Egypt, deserve another shot at greatness. I hope their time has come.

The Scorpion

2011-01-24T19:32:00.000-08:00

"When you believe in things that you don't understand, then you suffer..."

When I was growing up, I used to have a bunch of cool posters on my bedroom wall. Peter Fonda on his Easy Rider Harley, Joe Namath fading back to pass, Raquel Welch in a yellow bikini...

...what was I talking about? Oh, right, the posters.

I also had an orange and purple 'day-glo' poster with the signs of the zodiac arranged around the edge of a radiant circle -- kind of like a psychedelic dartboard. Each sign was identified by name along with its astrological symbol, date range, a pictoral representation and a one-word description. I remember the poster vividly, but I only remember one of the descriptions, the one for Scorpio -- my sign.

The word used to describe Scorpio was: Temperamental.

I used to look at that word when I'd been exiled to my room for having a "bad attitude." I really didn't know what 'temperamental' meant, any more than I knew what 'bad attitude' meant. But it definitely didn't strike me as a compliment.

I never liked the idea of being categorized by my astrological sign, especially when that category seemed to be 'Pain-In-The-Ass.' I found it ridiculous that some random group of stars a billion miles away was supposed to have some kind of influence on what kind of person I was. Even more absurd was the notion that everyone who was born during the same time of year, each and every year, somehow shared the same set of personality traits.

Who comes up with this crap?

But astrology was inescapable. Because no matter how illogical or superstitious it was, there were a lot of people who took it seriously. And when I say a lot of people, I mean, specifically, females. Not that there aren't guys who believe in astrology, just that if they do, well, who cares? But many women did take it seriously, and if I wanted to date them, I had to take it seriously, too. Or at least pretend to.

But due to my temperamental nature, I could never take it too seriously. When asked what my birthday was, an obvious prelude to astrological classification, I would often give false information and wait for the equally false interpretation. Inevitably I would get a response like: "I knew it -- your such a (fill in the sign)." Then, with a sly grin, I would reveal that I was not whatever sign she "knew" I was, but, in fact, a Scorpio. This revelation was usually met with comments like: "That figures -- Scorpios are such assholes."

Eventually I realized that making women feel stupid by lying to them about my birth sign was not an effective courtship strategy. So, I decided to play along. I reluctantly surrendered the facts and waited for the dreaded judgments. "Scorpios are so possessive... too intense... jealous... demanding... defensive... manipulative... suspicious... passionate... sensual... sexy...

Huh?

Apparently, there was another side to this whole Scorpio deal. Thanks to some wacky astrology book that came out back in the seventies, Scorpios got the reputation of being Red Hot Lovers. And since this crazy book was, at one time, required reading for all women between the ages of fourteen and ninety, the word got around. I came to feel proud of being a Scorpio -- even though I still thought it was all nonsense.

It was good PR.

Recently, however, I found out that I may not be a Scorpio after all! According to some astronomer in Minnesota, due to the earth's "wobbling" around its axis, all the astrological signs are off by about a month. And that would make me a Libra.

A Libra? Really? What am I supposed to do with that? How do you go from being a Badass Scorpion to "The Scales"? It's not even a living creature -- it's a freakin' appliance!

Definitely not sexy.

So if, as I firmly believe, astrology is all a big scam anyway, then why couldn't I just make up my own sign? There are plenty of other celestial bodies to choose from. A quick check of the November sky reveals such appealing alternatives as Delphinus, "The Dolphin" -- I enjoy swimming, and everybody likes dolphins. Or perhaps Draco, "The Dragon" -- dragons are awesome and way more badass than scorpions. How about Orion, "The Hunter". Pretty cool, right? Of course, according to myth, Orion was killed by a scorpion, and that takes us right back where we started.

I appear to be having trouble letting go of my Scorpion identity.

Fortunately, as I continued to research the matter, I discovered that the tropical zodiac signs that form the basis of Western horoscopic astrology have nothing to do with the astronomic positions of the constellations for which they are named. In other words, it really is just a completely made-up system.

And that means that I'm still a Scorpio!

Not that I care one way or another.

I mean, it's not like I'm obsessing about it or anything.

I'm just saying.

Change

2010-12-19T22:46:00.001-08:00

Around this time of year, everybody starts thinking about change. There's a new year on the horizon, and we all get a fresh start. Everything's going to be different. Out with the old and in with the new. New calendar. New Congress. New Facebook profile. Because new means better. Change is good. Anything different is an improvement on what we already have. Right?

Not always.

Take Congress for example. We "change" Congress every two years. Has it ever improved? Not a bit. Nobody has ever said, "damn, this new Congress is way better than that crappy old Congress we used to have." And they never will. Because change is not inherently good. Sometimes the crappy Congress we have is the best one we can get. And changing it only makes it worse.

As for Facebook, they have a whole army of people working around the clock whose sole objective is to make unnecessary changes to the system. These so-called "improvements," often known as "upgrades" are actually a continuing series of useless annoyances whose only real purpose is to provide the employees of Facebook with a sense of job security. Currently they are pushing a new profile format. Why? Is there something wrong with the current format? I like my profile the way it is. Some people say "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." But at Facebook their motto is, "if it ain't broke, be patient, we'll be screwing it up shortly."

Change.

While I accept the inevitability of change, I tend to resist its implementation. Recently, at work, I was asked to relocate to another building to help out with one of our more popular shows. They were gearing up for production and needed a few extra hands on deck, as it were. Now, some might see such a change of assignment as a welcome break to the hum-drum workaday routine. Not me. Once I get settled into my daily routine, I pretty much like to stick with it. I know exactly how long the commute takes. I have my computer set up just the way I like it. Got my favorite chair. I even have a little niche in the hallway fridge for my unsweetened chocolate soy milk. Now they want me to move?

Of course I agreed. I had no choice, really, but it seemed more civilized to pretend that I did. I decided to look at it as an adventure. As it turned out, the commute to the other building wasn't all that much different, just a few minutes longer. And the people over there were nice and all. They stuck me in an editing bay with some headphones and a laptop and basically left me alone. It was pretty damn cold in there, and the chair was kind of uncomfortable. And I couldn't quite get used to the size of the keyboard on the laptop. But, I decided to make a go of it.

After a few hours, I swapped chairs with one that wasn't being used. Then I scrounged around for a full-sized keyboard. The headphones were kind of digging into my skull, but I had to put up with them. I managed to tough it out for the rest of the night. After all, it was an adventure.

The next day, I was moved to another work station with a better chair and more comfortable headphones. Still a little chilly, but I brought a sweater along just in case. I also found a fridge for my soy milk. It was kind of over-crowded, but it would do. Things were looking up. Had to leave home a few minutes early to account for the slightly longer commute, but I was handling it.

I got moved again the next day, and spent the first half-hour setting up my workspace so it was just right. Put a box under the laptop to raise the monitor to eye-level. Switched chairs with one from an empty conference room. Got hold of a new keyboard from the guy in IT. And I was now working in an editing bay that was heated to actual room temperature. There was an editor in there with me who was putting together bits and pieces of video from a vast array of clips for a segment in one of the upcoming shows. I occasionally interrupted him and asked him questions about his process. It was pretty fascinating. I was getting a little bonus OJT out of the deal. This new assignment was turning out all right after all.

By the end of the week, I had settled into my new routine quite nicely. I was making friends with the editor and learning a lot about the nuts and bolts of storytelling from his perspective. I'd learned my way around the building and even found another fridge that had plenty of room for my soy milk and other snack items. I was just beginning to feel at home there. And that's when they told me my assignment was done and I would be moving back to the main building. I was glad to be going back, but I had to admit I had kind of been enjoying my little adventure. Especially now that it was over.

The following weekend, I did a major rewrite of a screenplay I've been working on for several years. They say all good writing is rewriting, but rewriting can be a real pain in the ass. I'd been living with this story for so long, it was hard for me to imagine it any other way. But I'd gotten some pretty clear notes that what I had wasn't working and I needed to make some serious changes. I'd been putting off the rewrite for months and now the deadline was near. I was backed into a corner and the clock was ticking. I dug through the loose pile of notecards and scraps of paper where I'd scribbled some random ideas, and started piecing them together bit by bit. Much like my editor friend had done with his array of video clips. Fortunately, I was working at home, where the chair is comfortable, the monitor is just the right height, and the fridge is stocked with unsweetened chocolate soy milk. In the end, the rewrite turned out pretty damn good. Much better than I'd expected. Much better than the original.

So I guess not all change is bad. Sometimes change can even be fun.

But I'm still not switching to the new Facebook profile.

Giving Thanks

2010-11-25T23:07:00.000-08:00

"Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)"

So I'm heading into work the other day and I pass by the boss's Range Rover -- when I say "boss" I mean our CEO, the guy who founded the company -- and I wondered if anybody ever thanks him. Not just the regular kind of "thanks" for holding the door open or passing the salt, but a more all-encompassing "thanks" for creating a successful company, providing people with jobs, and generally improving the economy. Obviously he didn't do it all out of the goodness of his heart; he's made a pile of money for himself. But, without his hard work and marketable ideas, I might not have a job right now. And that would suck.

So, thanks, dude.

While I'm at it, I should thank the woman who hired me for the job, too. She is my actual "boss-boss," and she came through for me when I really needed it. Again, she wasn't acting completely out of charity, she had a position to fill and needed someone she could rely on. She could very easily have hired someone else, but she knew I needed the gig and kept me in mind until something turned up. She also let me work around my screenwriting schedule, which is something I very much need to stay committed to.

So to her, I also say: "Thanks."

Then there's the guy who recommended me for the job in the first place. True, I dropped a few hints here and there. Some would say begged and pleaded. He made sure the boss-lady knew I was still interested and available and helped me get my foot in the door. He's still got my back now that I'm on the inside, keeping me in the loop with the producers I'm hoping to work with.

Yeah -- thanks, man.

And I know I've mentioned it before, but it bears repeating: I really appreciate my screenwriting group. This summer they helped me work through a rewrite of one of my scripts that has enabled me to revive some interest in it. And it's not just the writers in the group, but the actors too. They helped me see things that I didn't know were there, and some things that weren't there but needed to be. It was a huge help.

Thanks, guys.

I have, and have had, some pretty cool co-workers who allow me to bitch and moan when I feel the need to vent. Of course, I do the same for them. Most jobs seem to be like that -- people help each other through the rough spots by simply nodding and understanding, or sometimes chiming in or making a joke. It seems like a small thing, but without such commiserators, most of us would not last more than a few weeks at our jobs. Some of these office-buddies have remained my pals, long after we are no longer co-workers. And they still let me bitch and moan when I need to.

Thanks.

Old friends can be pretty cool, too. Sometimes, nobody but old friend can fix a bout of bad craziness with a simple reminder of where you came from or a well-aimed reality check. It's hard sometimes to stay in touch with your old friends as the years fly by. But a short phone call or even a funny Facebook post from an old friend can really bring you back home.

Many thanks.

Nobody, however, can bring you back home like your family. My sisters, who are so different, both continue give me insights and perspective that help keep me grounded and at the same time open my mind to possibilities and potential. They also show me examples of strength and wisdom that make me proud to know them. My brothers-in-law provide some needed guy-energy to the mix, because no matter how awesome my sisters are, it's still nice to know there's a man around to lift heavy objects and say things that are really obvious. My parents, meanwhile, offer unfailing support as well as a constant source of inspiration. They encourage me to pursue my dreams while reminding me of the little things that matter most. And they say some really funny shit.

I can't thank them enough.

My niece and nephews totally honor me by making me feel like I am still "cool" enough to hang with them. They also fill me with hope, just knowing there are such good people out there to face the weirdness that undoubtedly lies ahead. My niece's husband adds a wonderful new wing to our little family and enjoys the eminent distinction of being good enough for my niece.

Thanks, kids.

The more I think about it, the more people there are to thank. I'm not sure I can ever thank them all. If I ever gave an Oscar speech, I'd be up there for days. Just this week, a friend invited me over to share Thanksgiving dinner. Same thing happened last year, and the year before. I know I said "thank you," but somehow that just doesn't seem to be enough.

Or maybe it is. As long as you really mean it.

Uh-oh, they're playing the exit music, and I just know I'm forgetting someone...

I'll try again next year.

Thank you.

Vanity

2010-10-19T15:16:00.000-07:00

You're so vain... you probably think this blog is about you.

Vanity often gets a bum rap. It is even considered one of the Seven Deadly Sins. Which is pretty bad. But, when you think about it, without Vanity, what would become of civilization, as we know it? Without Vanity, would there be any world leaders? Doubtful. You don't get to be a world leader without thinking that you are pretty special -- and convincing others to think so, too. From Julius Caesar to Naploeon Bonaparte, Attila the Hun to Jabba the Hut, Mahatma Ghandi to Glenn Beck, the great leaders in history all have one thing in common: Vanity.

The same is true for science and the arts. Did Pythagoras come up with his famous theorem purely for the love of math? Of course not. He wanted to have something really awesome named after him. Same goes for Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein and Louis Pasteur. Pasteurization, by the way, is a confusing term. I mean, don't all cows come from pastures? So isn't all milk, in a sense 'pasture-ized'? I'm not saying it's deliberately misleading -- I'm just saying Louis didn't think that one through.

As for the art world, surely every great work of art is, by nature, an act of Vanity. Tell me you don't have to have some pretty big stones to paint a picture of God on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Or write a poem about your journey through the nine circles of Hell. Or make a 3-D movie about a planet filled with 10-foot-tall, blue-skinned Rastafarians who ride on flying dragons?

Serious Vanity.

Science teaches us that Vanity is a good thing. According to the Law of Attraction, if we imagine ourselves desirable, the Universe will reward us with high-cheekbones and positive cash-flow. Whereas, if we succumb to the victimizing philosophy of Humility, the Universe will in turn afflict us with bad hair and a lack of fashion sense. This is why good people are always pretty and bad people are ugly. It is, in fact, why movie stars are better than regular people.

True, there are many who believe that Humility is the proper path. Most often, though, you will find that these people are merely losers who need an excuse for their inability to play sports or get a date to the prom. I myself have fallen into the morass of abject Humility, believing that I were no better than anyone else, deserving only of my 'fair share,' willing to sacrifice my own comfort and pleasure for the so-called Greater Good. I wandered through the desert of self-denial for years, thinking that, by living simply and not seeking attention or reward, I was somehow leading a life of Virtue.

But what is Virtue? Is it not a Virtue to be loved and admired? Is it not a Virtue to be successful and happy? Is it not a Virtue to be awesome? And did my life of pitiful mediocrity provide me with any of these things?

Of course not.

So that is why I have come to embrace Vanity and all it has to offer. And not just to embrace Vanity, but to celebrate it as well. To paraphrase one of the great fictional heroes of our time:

The point is, ladies and gentleman, that Vanity--for lack of a better word--is good. Vanity is right. Vanity works. Vanity clarifies, cuts through and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Vanity, in all of its forms--has marked the upward surge of mankind. And Vanity--you mark my words--will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA.

I know that last part doesn't make any sense out of context, but it sounds cool.

As way to kick off my newfound commitment to Vanity, I am organizing the Rally To Restore Vanity, to be held on Tuesday, November 2nd, 2010. On that day, over a dozen people will flock to Hollywood to take part in a day-long program of festivities which is guaranteed to be literally fantastic.
I realize now that November 2nd also happens to be Election Day. But, trust me, when I originally chose the date, I really had no idea of its cultural or historical importance. I was being guided by my Inner Voice, on whose counsel I base all of my most important life choices. When I learned of the significance of the date, I realized that it was truly an inspired coincidence -- if indeed a coincidence it was! For what better occasion to celebrate Vanity than on the day of one of our biggest national popularity contests.

Now, at this point you may be thinking: 'But dude, how can I make Vanity work for me?' And herein lies the sheer beauty of Vanity, because, when it comes right down to it, I really don't care about you.

Divine Comedy

2010-09-19T11:24:00.001-07:00

The Sage who provokes laughter is more valuable than a well.

What is comedy? Essentially, comedy is what's "funny." So, what's funny? In the movie The Sunshine Boys, a retired vaudevillian named Willy, played by Walter Matthau, has this to say about what's funny:

Alka Seltzer is funny... Words with "k" in them are funny... Cupcake is funny. Tomato is not funny. Cookie is funny. Cucumber is funny. Car keys. Cleveland... Cleveland is funny. Maryland is not funny. Then, there's chicken. Chicken is funny.

Some things, however, can be funny to some people, but to others... not so much. For example, many people believe that Adam Sandler is funny.

But he isn't.

A friend of mine used to say that he could tell whether someone was smart if they laughed at his jokes. I myself have always used comedy as a way of unfairly judging people. I like making people laugh, and I like being around people who are funny. If someone can make me laugh, I usually like them. If they get my jokes, I love them.

I once dated a woman who wanted to be a stand-up comic. We met at a seminar for comedy writers and she seemed funny. By which I mean she laughed at my jokes. After we'd been dating for a few weeks, she invited me to come see her perform at a comedy club. I sat at the front table to provide moral support. She came out to do her set and...

Not funny!

Don't get me wrong, I laughed loud and hard. But I was totally faking it. (Yes, men can fake it, too.) Afterwards, I told her she was great, but deep down inside, I knew that our relationship was doomed. I tried to overlook it and focus on her other fine qualities (she worked at a bar and gave me free drinks) but it was no use. Seeing her onstage not being funny was too much to overcome. Perhaps it would have been different if she didn't think she was funny.

But she did. And she wasn't.

I figured I'd give stand-up comedy a try. It didn't look that hard. But the joke was on me -- turns out it was both awesomely terrifying and immensely satisfying. Mostly terrifying. The satisfying part is that you get to find out first hand if your jokes are funny. Fortunately for me, my jokes got laughs. The gut-wrenching, mind-numbing, paralyzing fear was bad enough. But to stand up there and have nobody laugh would have been sheer torture.

I decided I was better suited to writing. Less stressful. So, a friend and I co-wrote a play called Leading The Blind, about a couple who meet at their friends' wedding and end up getting married -- meanwhile their married friends are in the midst of a divorce and trying to talk them out of it. We held a staged reading of the play and I found that I much preferred anonymously sitting in the audience while trained professionals did all of the heavy lifting. Writing for actors was definitely the way to go.

Not long after that, I began writing screenplays. Only problem is, unless some miracle occurs and your screenplay gets made into a movie, you don't get to see how it plays in front of an audience. Closest I could get was some screenwriting software that "reads" your script out loud using an electronically programmed voice that sounds like Stephen Hawking on Quaaludes. It's funny, but not in a good way.

The first five screenplays I churned out were comedies. Basically, they are all about slightly geeky guys who get mixed up in dangerous situations and wind up meeting beautiful women who want to have sex with them. I thought I had invented my own genre, but it turns out that the genre already exists. It's called: Every Unsold Comedy Script Ever Written. I sent them around and got some good feedback here and there. But unless I could be in the room with the people who were reading my scripts and actually see if and when they were laughing, I couldn't really tell if my jokes were working. And the idea of me sitting there watching them read my script tended to turn most people off.

But now, after years of writing for an audience of one, I belong to a writing group that holds weekly script readings. There's no better indicator than the sound of a roomful of people laughing (or not laughing) to tell you if your script is funny. Or not. Just last week, I brought in one of my old comedy scripts for a reading. The actors did a fine job, as always, but after a somewhat subdued reading, several people asked me if it was, in fact, a comedy.

Awkward pause...

At least now I know where I stand. Time to go back and "punch it up," as we say in the biz. I got some good notes from my fellow writers to help guide me. Of course, you can't really tell someone how to be funny. I'll just have to go with my gut.

And put in a bunch of words with "k" in them.

In Your Dreams

2010-08-15T11:32:00.000-07:00

We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.

I'm a dreamer. I do it all the time. Usually when I'm asleep, but not always. Sometimes I get so caught up in my dreams that I have trouble separating them from reality. Every now and then, I wake up with a dream still fresh in my mind that's so vivid, it feels more "real" than my actual life. Other times, I'll remember something so clearly that I can't tell if it really happened or if I dreamed it. Of course, there are those who say that what we think of as "reality" is actually just an illusion. And someday we may "wake up" and realize it was all just a dream.

Unless, of course, we are really "waking up" into another dream.

Oftentimes I'll be sound asleep and dream that I wake up and try to remember what I was dreaming about. I keep a notepad next to my bed to write down some of the brilliant ideas that come to me in my dreams. So, I get into this crazy loop where I have a really cool dream, then I dream that I "wake up" and write down what the first dream was about. And, even though somewhere in the back of my mind I know that I am actually asleep, I manage to convince myself that if I "write down" the dream within the dream, I will remember it when I really do wake up.

But that never works.

Still, I have come up with some good ideas in my dreams. A lot of my dreams are just like movies. I've always wished I had some way to record them so I could watch them later. I guess that's why I like to write screenplays. I keep hoping that one of these days I will get to see one of my "dreams" up on the big screen. I actually had a dream once that I went to the premier of one of my movies. That was pretty cool. It was like a dream come true.

Except that it was only a dream.

When I was researching my first screenplay, Merlin, I read a bunch of books on magic. I learned that magic is essentially the act of taking a thought and making it real. That's not all that different from writing, really. Or just about any other form of creation, for that matter. Later, when I was writing Merlin, I had several weird experiences where I felt like some of the things I was conjuring up in my head were manifesting themselves in my life. I wasn't sure if it was really happening or if it was just coincidence, but it was pretty intense.

I thought the story of someone whose dreams started coming true would be a good idea for a screenplay. I wrote an outline about a guy who keeps having dreams about a beautiful, dark-haired girl. Then, one day, he sees her out on the street. He can't believe it. He tries to follow her, but loses her in the crowd. That night he dreams that she is in danger, and becomes obsessed with finding her and rescuing her.

Over the course of several rewrites, the story changed a bit. Eventually it turned into the tale of a young lawyer who dreams about being James Bond, and ends up in the middle of a totally Bond-like adventure in his real life. The girl changed, too. She went from a dark-haired mystery girl to a kick-ass blonde. I kept the original title though. I called it, In Your Dreams.

I quite enjoyed doing the research for In Your Dreams, which basically involved re-reading every Bond novel, and re-watching every Bond movie. I zeroed in on The Spy Who Loved Me as a good template for my story. It is the only Bond novel which is not told from James Bond's perspective, but instead from that of a young woman whom James Bond ends up rescuing. I decided to do a gender-switch with the young lawyer in the role of the rescuee and the kick-ass blonde became, who else? Jane Bond. I finished the script and posted the synopsis on a couple of screenplay websites, hoping to attract a flurry of attention.

The flurry never did materialize, although I did get an email from England from a young music-video director named Raj, who really liked the idea. I sent him the script and he loved it. We traded some emails back and forth for a while, discussing various projects and ideas. When Raj came to Hollywood for a visit, I brought him over to legendary guitar wizard Will Ray's house for a very untraditional Thanksgiving dinner. Raj and I have continued to stay in touch. He has since moved to Los Angeles and is currently in the process of launching his career as a feature film director.

Meanwhile, a few years went by. I had nearly forgotten about posting In Your Dreams on those screenplay websites, when I got a random email from a producer in Texas who said he was very interested. He loved the James Bond angle and wanted to try casting all of the old ex-Bonds in key roles. I thought that was a brilliant idea. We spent several months exchanging emails about the story, during which time it went through further revisions. He contributed some really good ideas, and I pretty much used them all. But then, as so often happens, he decided not to pursue the project. He was pretty cool about it, letting me know that I was welcome to go ahead use his ideas. (I was going to do that anyway, but it was a nice gesture.)

After that, I put In Your Dreams back up on the shelf and went on to my next project.

Then, about a week ago, I went to see Inception. And it was awesome. Not only is Inception a very cool movie about the thin line between dreams and reality, but it also has some kick-ass Bond-like action sequences. Especially in the third act, which is practically a remake of the third act of On Her Majesty's Secret Service. (Starring George Lazenby, by the way, who would be perfect as the villain in In Your Dreams.)

Once again, In Your Dreams has moved to the forefront of my thoughts. It's been floating around my subconscious for years, developing a kind of mythical status. At this point it's like a half-remembered dream that I had years ago. It seemed so real at the time -- but did it really happen? Some of the images are so clear in my mind, it's as though I truly remember seeing them. And, in a way, I guess I did see them, up there on the big screen inside my head. Where all of my dreams come true. Only this time, I'm pretty sure I woke up and wrote it all down.

Or did I just dream that, too?

The Park

2010-07-18T16:37:00.000-07:00

The Long Meadow

One of the many writing projects currently cluttering my mind, and my apartment, is the rewrite of my first novel, about my journey from Louisville to San Francisco and back again during a semester off from college. The other day I was looking at Chapter 4, in which I focus on Lake Merritt. I lived in a tiny apartment in Oakland, less than a block from Lake Merritt, and spent much of my free time there, roaming the shores, or simply staring at the water. It provided respite from the closed-in city, escape from worries and woes, a haven of peace in a world of chaos.

All my life I have taken refuge in parks -- from small city parks jammed between bustling boulevards to vast tracts of wilderness miles from civilization. Wherever I've lived, I have always sought out such places for inspiration and regeneration. I've come to rely on them, but in a way also to take them for granted. What would a world be like without parks? I couldn't imagine it.

When I was growing up, we had a neighborhood park at the end of our street that featured a rustic wooden bridge, tennis courts, a swimming pool and horse stables. For half the year, after school, my friends and I would disappear into the woods behind the park, having adventures and making discoveries. We wandered the bridle trails like exploring pioneers, clambered around Little Goose Creek searching for crawdads and newts, climbed trees and built forts. In the summer we spent hours and hours at the pool, splashing, racing, diving, jumping -- having a blast. It was always just "The Park" to us, but it was just about the best place on earth.

When I began running cross-country, however, I discovered another favorite park. Well, two parks actually, Seneca Park and Cherokee Park. We held our cross-country meets in Seneca Park, with its wide, flat, landscaped expanses of softball fields and tennis courts. But for workouts, we favored the more rugged and rolling bridle trails of the adjacent Cherokee Park. Running swiftly through the trees like ancient warriors on the trail of a mighty buck. Once I discovered trail running, I never wanted to run on streets again.

On a trip to Connecticut my junior year of high school, my Dad and I visited two college campuses. The first one was Yale, in the center of downtown New Haven. Although I had always fantasized about going to Yale, the gritty, urban campus really turned me off. Sure there were plenty of quads & courtyards offering shelter from the city streets, but the overall feel of the place left me cold. Then we went up to Middletown. Right in the middle of the Wesleyan campus is an open greenspace with a big grassy hill, a running track and playing fields: a park. I thought, 'yep, I could live here.' And that pretty much made the decision.

During my hiatus from Wesleyan, living in Oakland, I needed the proximity of Lake Merritt to feel at home in the big, scary city. And when I wasn't hanging out at the lake, I was running the trails of Strawberry Canyon winding through the hills above Berkeley. And then there was Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, a great place to just get lost for hours at time.

After college, I drove out to San Diego and found an apartment just a few blocks from the ocean, in Pacific Beach. There is almost no place like the beach for restoring one's soul. Walking along the water's edge, swimming in the surf or simply contemplating the immensity of the Pacific. No matter what was bugging you, the beach would always be there to remind you that the tide comes in and the tide goes out. Sometimes there are a lot of waves, sometimes there are none. Every night the sun goes down like a glorious god relinquishing his throne. And every day is new.

Back in Connecticut, I worked for a while at Hammonasset Beach State Park, building picnic tables, lifeguard stands and lengths of boardwalk, and occasionally shoring up the fenceline that ran along the dunes. When I wasn't working at the beach, I hung out at my parents' house, situated on the banks of a small tidal river directly across from the Guilford Salt Meadow Sanctuary -- so basically their backyard was an incredibly cool Audubon bird sanctuary.

Eventually, I drifted down to Washington DC where I lived in a row house right on the edge of beautiful Rock Creek Park. We actually lived just opposite the monkey house in the National Zoo, and in the early morning I could hear the macaques crooning and wailing to one another. Sometimes I would respond, blowing long sad notes on my harmonica. I think the macaques assumed I was just another monkey.

Rock Creek Park is a true national treasure, comprising some 2000 acres, including miles and miles of trails. I would sometimes cut through the zoo on my way to the subway in the morning or find any excuse to use Rock Creek Parkway if I needed to drive somewhere. But I spent most of my time on the trails. There are trails everywhere in Rock Creek Park. I would pride myself on being able to get way across town, from Cleveland Park to Georgetown, without once setting foot on pavement.

When I moved to Brooklyn, I felt like I was really in deep. Yeah, I'd lived in big cities before. Oakland is a big city, but we lived on the edge of a lake, and I spent most of my time working at a burger joint in Berkeley. As for DC, it's pretty tame as big cities go -- lots of trees and wide avenues and low buildings. Kind of like a super-sized college campus. Brooklyn, however, is almost unrelentingly urban. Block after block of nothing but concrete, asphalt and brownstone. Cars, buses and taxis moving nonstop. People everywhere. And the noise! Never a moment's peace. It was almost too much for a Louisville boy to bear.

Fortunately, I lived on the ground floor of a brownstone that had its own private backyard garden. Well, not so much a garden as a patch of ground filled with weeds and junk. I set about restoring my garden to a more pastoral state. I hacked down the weeds, planted grass, cultivated wildflowers. I put up a hammock and even had a kiddie-sized wading pool in the summer. It was pretty nice. A great place to get away from the intensity of the street. But it had its limitations. It was, after all surrounded by other buildings and other backyard gardens filled with many, many other people.

So, I discovered Prospect Park. Designed by Fredrick Law Olmsted who designed Central Park (as well as Cherokee and Seneca Parks), Prospect Park is perhaps the ultimate example of creating a pastoral environment in the midst of an urban one. The 90-acre Long Meadow is an oasis of grass in a concrete jungle, surrounded by berms and trees that serve to block out the sights and sounds of the city. Standing in the center of Long Meadow, you really can forget you are in the middle of one of the most densely populated places in the country.

I spent long days in Prospect Park exploring its nearly 600 acres, including a 60-acre lake, finding something new and interesting on almost every occasion. In the fall, Prospect Park's maple trees had some of the most vibrant orange, red and yellow leaves I'd ever seen. Who needs Vermont? In the winter, the park became a wonderland with skaters and sledders and cross-country skiers. One spring I sat every weekend under a favorite shade tree writing my second screenplay. And in the summer Long Meadow became a grassy beach filled with sun-bathers.

These days, I divide my time between three or four different parks, depending on the purpose. When I just need to sit under shady tree, I have Kings Road Park, just a few blocks away. For short hikes, I can go to the popular Runyon Canyon Park -- the 'in' place for Hollywood hikers. If I want more privacy, I head over to a rustic little gem called Franklin Canyon Park, nestled right in the heart of Beverly Hills. For swimming I have the West Hollywood Park, which is like my second home. As far as longer hikes, there are numerous places to choose from in LA County alone, including the amazing Topanga State Park, which at 11,000 acres is the largest state park within city limits.

I guess to me, parks represent the best intentions of a society -- the desire to preserve that which is truly valuable and the recognition that we all need to share this world somehow. It's nice to have your own little slice of heaven, shielded from the teeming masses and whatnot. I hope to have my own someday. But it's also good to know that there are still some places that everyone can enjoy. Places where kids can play and explore, where athletes can compete, where struggling writers can daydream. Who knows, maybe someday one of those kids will discover a new form of energy, or one of those athletes will inspire a whole generation, or that writer will write a book that changes the world?

And then he will have a park named after him.

Conservatism

2010-06-16T00:01:00.000-07:00

Wildness is a necessity.

I've never really thought of myself as a Conservative. I don't really think of myself as a Liberal either, although I suppose I do go along with what President Kennedy said on the subject:

If by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people — their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties — someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal," then I'm proud to say I'm a "Liberal."

The problem with such labels is they allow people to be dismissive of other opinions. If I'm a Liberal, then I must disagree with Conservatives, and vice versa. There seems to be a lot of that going around lately. We recently had a primary election here in California, and as a registered "Non-Partisan," I was given the choice of voting as either a Republican or a Democrat. Right or Left. Conservative or Liberal. One or the Other.

It wasn't a hard choice. But it did underscore the weird dichotomy that exists in politics, and in our culture in general. I guess I just don't get conservatism as a philosophy. Sure, I understand that people who have power want to keep things the way they are. And I can see how people who work hard don't want to give their money away to people they don't like. But as a way of life, it seems like conservatism is more about denying possibility than maintaining tradition. These days it seems like the so-called "conservatives" are pretty much opposed to any idea that isn't in their playbook. If they haven't thought of it already, it can't be good. Kind of like Hollywood. More sequels, remakes and franchises -- but please, nothing original. Nothing new. Nothing different.

But there is at least one area in which I do appreciate conservatism. When it comes to protecting and maintaining our natural resources, I think conservatism is the way to go. Conservatism, that is, in its original sense, meaning "preservationism." But this is where we run into trouble. Because many Conservatives seem more intent on preserving the Big Oil Monopoly than they do the environment. They seem more concerned with denying Global Warming than with accepting responsibility for air pollution. We can't afford to keep things "the way they are" when that way leads to calamity.

I first became aware of environmental conservatism in the Boy Scouts. My troop used to hold "paper drives" to raise money. We'd arrange to have a big semi-trailer parked in the church parking lot, and people would come by and drop off stacks of old newspapers and magazines to be recycled. This was a revelation. Paper can be recycled -- who knew? And the best part was that, invariably, some guy would dump off a pile of old Playboy magazines he'd been keeping in his attic, and we'd wind up sitting in the back of the trailer all day looking at pictures of naked women.

Recycling was awesome.

One particularly beautiful summer morning, on Keep America Beautiful Day, our troop set out hiking alongside the state highway that ran past my neighborhood, picking up litter that people had thrown out of their car windows. And there was a lot of it. Nationwide, the Scouts collected over a million tons of litter that day. I'd learned from my camping experiences that we should always leave the campsite better than we found it. I began to think that maybe that rule should apply everywhere.

In high school, I got involved with a student group called the Ecology Club. We organized a trip to Frankfort, our state capital, to join a march protesting the building of a dam that would obliterate a pristine wilderness area known as The Red River Gorge. My Dad and I had gone camping and hiking there, and I thought it was about the most beautiful place on earth. I couldn't imagine losing it forever. Eventually, thanks to a declaration signed by President Clinton, the Gorge was placed under federal protection.

Conservatism.

Those early experiences had a big impact. And the philosophy of being conservative with resources, of not being wasteful, of using only what you need and leaving the world better than you found it, has stayed with me. These days, however, instead of protest marches, I channel my energy towards things like recycling my junk mail and carrying a reusable grocery bag when I walk to the market. What my old high school buddy Hank calls 'microactivism'.

But it still makes me mad when I walk by a store on Rodeo Drive on a hot day and feel the cold blast of air escaping from the open door. Or go to the park and see the parking lot jammed with gas-guzzling SUVs. I feel like I'm the only one who is trying to conserve. Everyone else seems perfectly happy sucking up oil and spewing out waste, driving around in monster Humvees while all the trees are mowed down and the seas are poisoned.

Which brings us to BP. Some Conservatives would suggest that 'over-regulating' the oil industry interferes with the Free Market. They recommend more drilling in more places instead of, say, electric cars and emission caps. But I say that a true conservative would be in favor of preserving the sanctity of God's creation, not spoiling it. I say that a true conservative would welcome the reduction of industrial waste rather than increasing it. I say that true conservatives would want to leave the world a better place than they found it, out of respect and gratitude and a sense of responsibility. You know, Traditional Values.

So, if that is what they mean by "Conservative," then I'm proud to say I'm a "Conservative."

Factotum

2010-05-24T23:23:00.000-07:00

Hollywood is the one place in the world where you can die of encouragement.

I started a new job not long ago, and by "new" I mean that I am actually doing a job that I have never done before. For years, I have worked as a paralegal, in various law firms in three different cities. But, when I quit my last job, I vowed to myself that I would never work as a paralegal again. Not that being a paralegal is such a terrible thing. The pay is good. There are often plenty of intelligent people around to talk to -- often including the lawyers. And for the most part it is a job I could pretty much count on getting.

And that was the problem.

Because I had so much experience as a paralegal, and because the pay was good, and because there always seemed to be a need for paralegals, I began to believe that it was the only job I could apply for. The only job I was qualified for. The only job, period.

Except that I hated being a paralegal. Again, not that there's anything wrong with being a paralegal. Well actually there is -- it is essentially a 'go nowhere' position. You can't advance through the ranks of paralegaldom and eventually become a lawyer. Most people become paralegals for a year or two before going on to law school -- or not going on to law school, once they have seen what horrors await them. Some, however, stick it out and become 'career' paralegals, and many end up doing very well. But I felt that being a paralegal was sucking the life out of me little by little, and I had to get out.

So I did.

You know how they say "leap and a net will appear?" Well, I leaped -- or is it leapt? Anyway, I jumped. But, here's the thing -- they don't say when the net will appear. Kind of a big loophole. Oh sure, I had a master plan: I was going to sell a screenplay and make tons of money. And in fact, a couple of months after I quit my job, I had a meeting with an actual Movie Producer who told me how much he loved my script and that he wanted to work with me. It was like one of those signs from the Universe that people are always talking about. Serious encouragement. You made the right choice. Keep at it.

Cool.

So I waited all summer to hear back from the Movie Producer who loved my script. Then, I waited through fall and winter. It's been three years since that meeting, and he still hasn't gotten back to me. And there have been numerous other such encounters, many of them initially encouraging, but most of them essentially bullshit. As Dorothy Parker once said, "Hollywood is the one place in the world where you can die of encouragement."

So I began to think that I might actually have to get another job. But, that meant going back on my vow. That meant being a paralegal again. And that felt like death.

I tried applying for non-paralegal jobs, but the problem with getting a job is, they only want to hire someone who has already done that exact job for at least two years already. So how does anyone ever get a new job? The other problem with applying for jobs is my resume. I basically have two things on my resume: Paralegal and Writer/Editor. I worked in publishing for a short time when I was in New York and did some free-lance work as a writer here and there. But that was a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.

I've had lots of other jobs, too. But they don't make it onto my resume: Dishwasher, Movie Theater Usher, Busboy, Short Order Cook, Ice Cream Truck Driver, Construction Worker, Office Manager, State Park Work Crew, Swimming Pool Tech... And some I can't remember.

Lately though, the choices seem to be getting narrower and narrower. I guess because I've always taken jobs as a sideline to my real pursuit, which was to be a writer, I've never really had what one might call a "career." And so I seem to be stuck with the same stopgap job that I accidentally fell into when I moved to Washington DC one year and was told I could easily find work as a paralegal.

But then, one day, the phone rang. It was a woman who works at a production company that makes reality TV shows. I met her through my friend Jimmy. She hired him about a year ago when his lucrative job in commercial real estate suddenly disappeared. He told me how much he loved the new job, so I said that if they are looking for anyone else, tell them I am available. When I didn't hear back after a few months, I kind of forgot about it. But then, out of the blue, here she was calling me up and offering me a job. The net finally appeared!

And I took it.

The funny thing is, the actual work I do isn't really that different from some of the work I did as a paralegal. I'm using many of the same skills and performing similar tasks. But there is one big difference: I actually enjoy it. For all those years I had been working at a job that had nothing to do with anything I care about. Now I am involved in something that fascinates me. Everything I've learned about arcane things like story beats and character arcs has become a valuable part of my resume. The time I spent teaching myself how to produce, direct, shoot and edit my short movie is now on-the-job training. All the books I've read, all the seminars and classes I attended, all those hours sitting alone at home working out plot points and creating storyboards -- they've all become applicable experience.

Plus, all of the skills and techniques I acquired while working in law firms and publishing and construction and even driving an ice cream truck have contributed to my overall understanding of what it takes to get the job done and see it through. Nothing is wasted. All knowledge is transferable.

But, best of all, I am finally at a job where there is somewhere to go. I don't have to remain in my present position forever. Who knows, maybe I could even become a TV producer.

Of course, I've been through this before. When I worked in publishing, I thought I had found my dream job, only to have it rudely taken away from me. But, for now, I am just happy to be working at something that feels right. Not just a sideline or a stopgap, but something I could do for real.

Or, at least until I sell a screenplay.

Merlin

2010-04-17T17:01:00.001-07:00

You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards.

My Dad sent me an email the other day that contained a link to a speech given by Steve Jobs to the 2005 graduating class of Stanford University. In it, Jobs relates three stories from his life, each of which seemed like a major setback at the time, but which eventually led him to bigger and better things. One of the stories was about getting fired from Apple, the company he started in his parent's garage when he was a 20-year-old college drop-out. It was devastating for him, but it also led him to one of the most creative periods in his life.

It reminded me of the time I got fired. Of course, the company I got fired from was not one that I had started, nevertheless the experience was a major blow. I was working in publishing as a managing editor at a small boutique firm in the Chelsea district of Manhattan. It was as close as I'd ever gotten to a 'dream job' -- basically being paid to be a writer, or more accurately, to rewrite other writers. I was working in a creative field with other creative people. No more temping in law firms for me! I was beginning an actual career. Like a real adult.

Or so I thought.

When the three book series I'd been working on was finished -- on time and under budget thanks to my tireless efforts -- my usefulness at the small company came to an end. Several lame explanations were offered for my dismissal, but the plain truth was they didn't want to keep paying me what I was worth when they could easily find some young kid to do the job at half the pay. Which they did.

So I was out on my ass. And the economy was bad. I reluctantly reapplied to the temp agencies, but they had diddley. I tried to shop one of my book ideas, a parody of the Twelve-Step Program called The Twelve Shleps, but was told that Twelve-Steppers wouldn't find it funny.

I was unemployed and out of ideas. I had too much time on my hands and nothing to do. I spent long days exploring New York City from top to bottom -- from The Cloisters to Coney Island -- discovering whole new worlds in hidden places. I walked all over Brooklyn and spent hours in Prospect Park, the Botanic Garden, and the Brooklyn Public Library. It was actually a pretty amazing time. I came to love New York more than ever and really feel at home there.

Meanwhile, I had a roommate who was working in the movie business and would bring home screenplays from whatever movie he was working on. I picked one up one day and read it in one sitting. And from that moment I was hooked. I'd been interested in movies all my life, but it wasn't till then that I realized that all I needed to make a movie was pen and paper. Well, not a pen, actually, a computer. And I didn't really need the paper right away. What I needed was an idea.

I thought about all of my favorite stories growing up: James Bond, Robin Hood, Sherlock Holmes, King Arthur... I loved the story of Arthur and Merlin most of all. My high-school girlfriend had given me a copy of The Once and Future King and it had always held special meaning for me. And the Disney cartoon The Sword in the Stone had long been a favorite. Employing one of the screenwriter's most valuable tools, I began thinking "what if..." What if Merlin were to show up in modern day New York? My New York. What would he think? How would he react? How would New York react to him? One thing I knew -- it would definitely be a comedy.

I began by doing tons and tons of research. I read everything ever written about Merlin and King Arthur, from Geoffrey of Monmouth to Tennyson to the excellent series by Norma Lorre Goodrich. I prowled the Brooklyn Library and the New York Public Library for information on dragons, magic, Celtic symbolism, ley lines, chivalry, Avalon, and dozens of other topics. I couldn't get enough. The more I learned the more I wanted to learn. I had taken to heart the words spoken by Merlin to Arthur in The Once and Future King: "Learn why the world wags and what wags it."

All the while, I continued to explore New York, the city of never-ending discoveries. I went to a renaissance fair at Fort Tryon Park to see a mock joust and witnessed a Merlin figure dressed in a purple robe practicing tai chi with a beautiful polished wooden sword. I came upon a Wiccan circle in the middle of Prospect Park, celebrating the pagan holiday of Ostara. I wandered through Central Park and beheld a vision of the Grail Castle, a winged dragon hovering over its entrance.

I became fascinated with Stonehenge and the concept of ley lines, imagining that these magical energy pathways that ran through the earth's surface were somehow connected both to Merlin and the dragons -- and that Stonehenge was the vortex of their power. Then one day, while investigating Celtic symbols, I found a drawing depicting a dragon beneath the surface of Stonehenge, just as I had imagined. I was blown away -- this idea I thought I had conjured up on my own was right there in front of me in black and white. I called the person who created the graphic and explained how my vision quest had led me to the discovery of his artwork. He chuckled and said, "you're just on the brink of a much larger world."

As it turns out, he was right, although I don't think in the way he meant it. What I was on the brink of was the world of screenwriting. I took all of my research and distilled it into a story of a young man who goes to England and stumbles into a crystal cave where he awakens Merlin from a magic spell -- then returns to New York and finds that it wasn't all a dream, and that Merlin has followed him home and chosen him to be his next pupil.

I wrote several drafts, and each time I did, it seemed that the events I created in my story were being recreated in my real life. Soon after writing a scene where my main character gets mugged, I got mugged. I wrote a sequence where two knights on horseback are jousting on the Brooklyn Bridge and the next day I saw Woody Harrelson and Kiefer Sutherland dressed as cowboys riding horses across the Manhattan Bridge. Likewise, the things I experienced in my life were finding their way into the script -- the tai chi sword master, my trip to the Cloisters, the Grail Castle in Central Park. I got so wrapped up in my story that I never wanted it to end. It was a whole new world.

Eventually I decided to enter a contest, thus giving myself a deadline. I finished the script and sent it off, fully expecting to hear from Steven Spielberg any minute. I didn't win the contest, though, and I never heard from Spielberg. But that didn't deter me. I was already researching my second script -- based on my love of the Sherlock Holmes stories -- and was reading everything ever written on the subject. And loving every minute of it.

I finished the second script a lot faster than the first. And I even attracted the attention of a William Morris agent. I was on my way now. I had proven that I wasn't just a 'one hit wonder' and that I had material with commercial appeal. And I already had a third idea, about a guy who fantasizes about being James Bond. There was only one thing left to do, and that was to move to Hollywood.

I still don't know where this path is leading, but looking back I am able to connect some of the dots. Getting fired from that publishing 'dream job' gave me the freedom to pursue a passion that has kept me inspired ever since I read that first script. And lately, I have only become more inspired. I know there are more 'dots' on the horizon. I just haven't connected them yet.

Feedback

2010-03-15T17:36:00.000-07:00

Several years ago, when I lived in New York, some friends and I were involved in something which, like it or not, was often referred to as a men's group. Not that there's anything wrong with being in a men's group. It's just that the term carries with it certain connotations and associations, such as the image of a group of bare-chested men sitting around a campfire whining about how their Daddies didn't love them enough. Rest assured that in our group, all whining took place with the participants fully clothed. Besides, our group was really more of a friend's group than a men's group.

And to be fair, whining was not something our group condoned. I found this out the hard way one night, whining about my chronic issue: why do women always treat me like crap? I was about midway through my presentation when the guys stopped me short. We've heard this all before, they said. And we don't need to hear it again. Until you come up with some kind of solution or at least a new attitude, consider this subject off-limits.

I was stunned. What a bunch of assholes! I thought these guys were supposed to be my friends! Here I had trusted them with my deepest darkest fears and they turn around and kick me in the teeth. Besides, if I can't complain about my lousy love life, what the hell else am I gonna talk about?

But I didn't argue. I was hurt and I felt humiliated, but on some level, I also knew they were right. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized just how right they were. By the time the next meeting rolled around, I was truly grateful to have such good friends, who were willing to risk hurting my feelings in order to give me the kick in the ass that I desperately needed. And over the years, I have come to see that moment as one of the most important defining moments in my life.

When I left New York for Hollywood, I left my group behind. They are still together, though. Still meeting on a regular basis to listen to each other's problems and give each other corrective ass-kicks when necessary. I miss having that kind of support and guidance. For a while I toyed with the idea of forming a West Coast chapter. At one point, three members of the original group were living here in LA. But it never came together. Too much space out here. Not enough community.

Meanwhile, I was working on my writing as much as possible, and running into the same issue over and over again: You need to have other people read your stuff so you can see if you are doing it right. You need to have feedback. Now, occasionally, I have been lucky enough to find someone who was interested in one of my scripts and would actually give me 'notes' on it. But these opportunities came rarely, and often after receiving the notes I would be left on my own to try and figure out what they meant, without being able, for whatever reason, to follow-up with the person who gave them.

This is why, I learned, writer's join writer's groups. And if you think men's groups have a bad rap, my idea of a writer's group was a thousand times worse. Who in their right mind would volunteer to sit in a room full of writers and listen to them blather on and on about their stupid little characters or their dopey plot points or their ridiculous "themes"? Not me. I'd rather have my roots planed.

But then I met a fellow screenwriter who was in such a writer's group and was always telling me how helpful it was. How the other writer's could keep you from falling into the same old traps and show you where you needed to go with your story. It sounded wonderful, like my old friend's group but with writers. How cool. I wondered if I could join his writer's group. But, it seemed that his group was very restricted. He told me they weren't accepting anyone new -- too many people and they would lose focus. I didn't believe him. I figured he just wanted to keep his precious group to himself. A lot of writers are like that out here. Afraid if they give anything away, there won't be enough for themselves.

So, I tried to start my own group. I attended a series of screenwriting seminars and collected email addresses from the other writers. By the end, I had a pretty good list -- around thirty names. I figured that would winnow itself down to about ten, which would be just the right amount. I even checked into renting a meeting room at the Farmer's Market where we could all get together. I sent out several rounds of emails, trying to arrange a schedule everyone could agree to. But, what I found was that out of thirty people, only one or two were actually interested enough to follow through. And one of them lived in San Francisco.

So, I gave up on the idea forming my own writer's group. But I was still getting comments on my scripts like, "it's 80 percent there," and, "the writing's not quite where it needs to be." Real helpful. Obviously I needed better feedback. Then, one day out of the blue, a friend sent me an email about a writer's group that was looking for members. I checked it out. This group meets every week and holds staged readings of 30-page excerpts from members screenplays. Then the rest of the group offers comments. It sounded intense, but also incredibly helpful.

So, I submitted some sample scripts and went to a few meetings, doing my best to contribute intelligent-sounding notes during the commentary section. I was pretty impressed by the quality of the writing as well as the notes. Several of the writers have had their works produced, and all are very good at articulating their criticisms and suggestions. Plus there is a pool of very talented actors who volunteer to come in and read the scripts onstage every week. It's a great way to find out if your dialogue is working or not.

After a couple of weeks, I was asked to join. Within a month I had my first 30 pages presented to the group. It was very cool to hear my work being read onstage. The actors did a great job. Afterwards I took my place on the stage to absorb the comments of my peers. And, boy did they let me have it. I wanted feedback? Oh, I got feedback alright. I had no idea there were so many things I could be doing wrong. It was kind of brutal. I just kept smiling and writing, hoping it would all be over soon.

Then something amazing happened. One of the writers made a suggestion. And then somebody else picked up on it and expanded on it. Then others did, too. And before I knew it, I had a whole new approach to my script. A script I've been working on for years. And not just a new approach, the right approach. It really clicked. And I could tell by the reaction, that everyone else agreed. They had solved my problem. A problem I never knew I had.

Suddenly I realized what a writer's group was really for. Much like my friend's group back in NYC, these people were here to help me. They care about the same things I care about. They want me to make my script better. And I want to do the same for them.

I went back to my old script with a burst of energy, working to incorporate the excellent advice I'd gotten. It felt like a brand new movie. I couldn't wait to get it back up onstage to show the group what I had done. I even began writing some of the parts to fit the characterizations created by the actors. They were helping me, too. And I wanted to write better lines and create more interesting characters for them to perform. It was a blast. Who knew writing could be so much fun?

I don't know why it took me so long to find a group like this to work with. But I know what my Mom would say: She would say that I found this group because I was ready to find it. That I needed to reach a point where I could accept the feedback and criticism and be open to new ideas. Among other things, I have learned not to contradict my Mom on matters such as these. She is usually right. I'm just glad I finally got here, wherever 'here' is, because I am ready to make the most of it.

Because to me, it's not just a writer's group, it's a friend's group.

Sugar Mountain

2010-02-15T21:40:00.000-08:00

Oh, to live on Sugar Mountain
With the barkers and the colored balloons,
You can't be twenty on Sugar Mountain
Though you're thinking that
You're leaving there too soon...

[The following is excerpted from The Fire and the Rose, a novel I wrote my senior year of college. At this point in the story, the narrator, Jack Singer, has hitchhiked from Wilson College in Connecticut to Duke University to visit his high-school sweetheart -- only to discover that she has a new boyfriend. While at Duke, Jack meets up with his best friend Jesse Wolf, and together they embark on an odyssey across the state of North Carolina as they hitch their way to Nashville, Tennessee.]

A dirty-white Buick Cutlass swooped across two lanes and skidded to a stop in in front of us. Jesse and I looked in amazement as the two old winos inside gestured frantically for us to get in. We squeezed into the back and the driver vaulted us into traffic. The passenger turned around and squinted at us. He looked exactly like Otis the Drunk from Mayberry.

"Where ya headed?"

"Davidson."

"Yep."

The driver now turned around. He looked like a parole violater.

"Either ya'll gotta license?"

Jesse said nothing.

"I have one," I volunteered.

"Lessee it."

I handed him my license. He scrutinized it for a second and then gave it back.

"OK, you get to drive."

He swung the car into a rest area, and the two of them got out to piss.

"I think it's safer for me to drive than him," I said, climbing over the seat.

"I guess so," Jesse shrugged.

They got in, and we took off. The car had a hair-trigger gas pedal. Not really a pedal, just a worn-down nub where the pedal used to be. The slightest touch and it would do eighty. I tried to keep it down to around fifty, but the two drunken fools kept urging me to go faster. The three of us were jammed in the front. Jesse was half-dozing in the back. The parole-violater was shouting instructions.

"Pull up next to that truck, boy. I want to shoot him."

"I think I'll stay back here." I tried my best to hide my fear, as I would with a skittish horse or a wild dog.

"Well, all right then... jes' lemme git my gun here."

He reached under the seat and whipped out a bottle of Night Train. I was relieved -- for the moment.

"Did we tell you that we stole this car, boy? Yer driving a stolen car!"

He turned to Otis. "Where did we steal this car?"

"Virginia, what'd he say, Belzey, Bezley? Beazley, BEAZLEY, Virginia!"

"We stole this car in Bezley, Virginia."

"BEAZLEY!"

"Beazley... Bezley, who was that nurse, last night, we was talkin' to at the Duke hospital, who was she? We was at Duke last night..."

"Was it Bezley or Beazley, I think he said Beazley."

"That's where we stole this car, Beazley, Virginia!"

"Where was we last night, I'uz two-thirds drunk."

"Duke, we was at Duke, remember that nurse?"

"I remember, I'uz two-thirds drunk."

"Boy, did you know that yer drivin' a stolen car?"

"I think this is the exit for Davidson." I announced. "I'm just gonna pull off the road here..."

"No, boy, you wanna get off the Concord exit, that's seven miles." He turned to Otis again.

"Now where did we get this car? Belzey?"

"Beazley," Otis burped. He was beginning to mellow. He looked like a baby with gas. "Beazley, Virginia."

"Lemme write that down," said the parole-violater, pulling a pen off the sun visor. He opened the glove compartment and pulled out an envelope that had the official seal of the Governor of North Carolina engraved in the corner. Even Jesse was watching now. The parole-violater scrawled "Beazley, Virginia" on the envelope and stuffed it in his pocket. I pulled off the road and stopped the car.

"Thanks for the ride."

Jesse and I jumped out before they could protest.

Otis slid over and took the wheel. He uttered a loud belch and they sped off into the sunset. I looked at Jesse.

"Did you see that envelope?"

"Uh-huh."

"Do you think those guys know the Governor of North Carolina?"

"Jack, I think one of those guys is the Governor of North Carolina."

The old parole-violater was almost right. We had to walk four miles to get to Highway 73. My feet hurt. We made a sign on Jesse's sketch pad that said "PLEASE" and waited by the highway. We got a ride before dark that took us all the way to the Davidson campus.

We stayed overnight with Spence, a friend who graduated from Watterson a year ahead of us. We had a nice dinner in Spence's frat and went out for a few beers. Then we returned to the frat to crash. We were leaving early for Nashville the next morning.

We woke Spence at seven a.m. and asked him how to get to Interstate 77. He got out of bed, led us across campus and pointed down a road leading west

"A mile and a half."

As we walked, the sky grew gray and cold rain started to fall. We stood on the side of Interstate 77 for two hours and got soaked. To pass the time we sang Grateful Dead songs.

Keep on movin' just a mile to go...

Our first ride was with a guy who said he'd hitched through these parts back when he was in the Army. We got his car soaking wet, but he didn't mind. He dropped us off under a bridge so we could at least stand out of the rain. We thanked him and waved goodbye. Jesse looked down the highway and predicted our next ride.

"This one."

A white Econoline van pulled over and we got in. It was loaded with all kinds of woodworking tools. The driver had a long, white beard and talked constantly about the rainy weather. He took us up to the junction with 1-40 West, leaving us under another bridge. He was going east. We waited under the bridge and watched a US Army caravan pass by. They all waved, and we waved back. A cop passed us too, and he waved. Hitching is legal in North Carolina.

Our first ride west was with a guy in a jeep. He had a CB radio and was able to cruise down the highway at high speeds dodging all the speed traps. He went so fast we repassed the Army caravan. The CB guy dropped us off in the middle of a beautiful mountain pass. The rain was just clearing. Directly in front of us, framed on both sides by steep valley walls, stood a beautiful peak as green and lush as Mount Abora. Jesse gazed up at it.

"Look Jack, Sugar Mountain."

We sang one of our favorite Neil young songs.

You can't be twenty on Sugar Mountain...

The sun was out now, and we hung our wet coats on reflector poles to dry. The Army caravan passed us again. We all waved.

"You know, Jack, I haven't felt this good for a long time."

"Yeah, I even felt happy when we were at Duke, even though I was miserable."

"It's just good to be on the road, no worries, no responsibilities."

"Here comes a pickup. He's slowing down."

A sky blue pickup truck stopped, and we got in. There was a welder's torch in the bed of the pickup. The welder was blonde and sunburned. He said he used to be a med student at UNC, but he grew bored of the books and dropped out. He was on his way to a job. We talked about school and life and the road. He seemed like the happiest man alive, just driving around from job to job. He dropped us off at his exit and went on his way. We waited there for hours but had no luck. Suddenly, the welder reappeared. He laughed. He was now on his way to see his mother. He drove us a few miles up the road.

"Now, I don't want to see y'all again."

We promised he wouldn't. I looked around. We were in the middle of nowhere. I thought we'd never get a ride. We waited for hours. Few cars passed by. None slowed down. Finally, a white pickup appeared from out of nowhere and screeched to a halt at our feet. The window was down. I looked in.

"Uh, where ya'll headed?"

"Just fuckin' around. Get in."

The two of us squeezed into the cab with the two of them. They were about twice our age, but a lot less drunk than the pair we'd met the day before. The stereo was blasting the live version of American Woman by the Guess Who.

"I love this tape," yelled the driver and turned it up even louder.

"Don't you?"

I nodded.

"Y'all heard about the coal strike?"

I nodded again.

"Yeah, they's haulin' in coal from outta state on trains. We're goin' to blow up the tracks."

I smiled. They were going to blow up the railroad tracks. I leaned my head back and bumped it on one of their rifles. I hoped we hadn't pushed our luck too far. The driver whipped out a silver cigarette case and opened it. It was full of joints. He gave one to me.

"That's for later."

Then he took out another and lit it. When it got passed down the line to Jesse, he lit another and continued the process until each of us had a joint.

"Check down by your feet, there ought to be some beer left."

Jesse reached down and pulled out an eight-pack with four left.

"We'll have to stop and get more."

"They's eight more in back," offered the driver's trusty sidekick.

"Then we'll have to stop and get them."

He pulled off at the next exit and swung onto an access road paralleling the highway. Off to the side of the access road was a small store. We slid to a stop in the gravel parking and the two of them got out to piss on the side of another pickup truck. Then the sidekick grabbed the other eight-pack and we were rolling again. The driver grinned, heading towards the next junction doing seventy.

"I 'uz born in this county, know these roads good."

We could see the highway through the trees, and I noticed that we were passing the Army caravan again.

"Wonder where they're all goin'?" mumbled the sidekick, as we all opened our beers.

The driver handed me another joint to light. We were now on the back streets of Black Mountain, where Interstate 40 turned into Main Street for a mile or so. Standing at every traffic light along Main Street were soldiers carrying M16 rifles. We waited at the light till the Army caravan passed by, then we swerved back onto I-40. The sidekick leaned over me to get a better view, spilling his beer on Jesse's lap.

"Look at that motherfuckin' gun!"

They drove us to a place where the highway makes a sharp right and cars have to slow down -- assuring us we'd get a ride to Nashville from there. As we retrieved our packs from the back, the truck rolled forward onto Jesse's toe. Jesse shouted, and they took off laughing.

Sure enough, we got picked up within minutes. A souped-up Camaro rumbled up and a long-haired dude signalled us to get in the back. He and his 'old lady' were on their way to Texas. She was cute.

"Got any weed, man?"

I produced the joint I still had, and we drove on towards Nashville. Jesse fell asleep. I stared out the window listening to Eric Clapton. When we stopped for gas, the long-haired dude asked us if we had any money. When we said no, his 'old lady' bought us some crackers and soda from a vending machine. She then took the wheel and drove the rest of the way to Nashville. We arrived at sunset.

Christmas Moon

2010-01-14T15:13:00.000-08:00

"Welcome to the Overlook Hotel!"

It all started out innocently enough. My friend Jim and I had decided to go on a hike on Christmas Day. We hadn't seen each other in a while, nor been hiking together in even longer. I suggested a couple of local trails in the Santa Monica Mountains, but Jim wanted to go up to the Angeles National Forest in the San Gabriel Mountains. He'd taken me up there a couple of times before, once to a place called Echo Mountain and another time to Henninger Flats, which by the way, is not flat at all. Those hikes were a little more challenging than my local favorites, but well worth the effort.

So, on Christmas Day, I packed up my supplies: camera, water, almonds, poetry journal. Plus a couple of awesome turkey pastrami sandwiches on this amazingly dense dark rye bread made with whole rye meal and black strap molasses, and my special ingredient, spicy hummus! I put the sandwiches into a handy insulated bag I'd picked up at a yard sale on one of our previous hiking trips.

When I got to Jim's house, he was rarin' to go. First, we drove his roommate Matt to a relative's house for a family Christmas party. Matt often goes with Jim on his hikes, but not today. Also in the car with us was Donza, Jim's dog, named for Aldonza a/k/a "Dulcinea" the peasant girl who is idealized by Don Quixote. Donza is part Labrador Retriever part Pit Bull, and all sweetheart. She was a "rescue" and still has a somewhat nervous demeanor around strangers and other dogs, but once you get her out on the trail she's one happy pup.

We took the 10 east and turned north on Santa Anita Ave., which runs right up into the mountains where it winds through Big Santa Anita Canyon, ending up at a place called Chantry Flat. Again, not flat. We circled the parking area, which was completely full, and found what appeared to be the last available spot on the side of the road leading back down the mountain. Chantry Flat has a large picnic area, a Ranger's station, and a pack store for outfitting hikers and backpackers. There are several trailheads branching off from Chantry Flat including one that goes all the way up to the Mt. Wilson Observatory. We were planning on taking the Upper Winter Creek Trail that runs along the canyon wall to a camping area called Hoegee's Trail Camp, then returning along the canyon floor along the Lower Winter Creek Trail, about five miles round trip.

We got out of the car and I grabbed my camera, my almonds, my journal and some water. I decided to leave the sandwiches for after the hike. Jim was pulling some things out of the trunk. I asked him if I needed to lock the door, but he said he would lock up. I shut my door and Jim closed the trunk. Then he looked at me.

"Uh-oh."

"What?"

"I think I left the keys in the car."

I looked in through the window and sure enough, there they were, hanging in the ignition. I tried my door thinking it was still unlocked. But it wasn't. Jim tried the other door. It too was locked. We were locked out. On a mountain. On Christmas Day.

"It's okay," Jim said. "I can call Triple-A. Oh, wait, no I can't. I left my phone in the car."

I'd left my phone in the car, too. In one of the pockets in my handy insulated sandwich bag. We looked around for a pay phone, but found none. We checked the pack store, but it was closed. So was the Ranger Station. There were a few private residences but they looked abandoned. The picnic area was swarming with people, though. Kids playing, people grilling. We thought about asking one of them to borrow a cell phone, but then decided we'd wait until after the hike. It was still early and we were only going five miles. We'd be much more disposed to sitting around waiting for a tow truck after we'd had our exercise. So off we went.

Jim led us up a fire road that turned into a trail. Soon we were deep into the canyon surrounded by trees and rocks and a trickling creek. It was really beautiful. I was glad we'd come up here. What a great way to spend Christmas Day. I'm not religious, but I've always said if you want to get closer to God, you have to go outside.

We talked about music. Jim and I were in a band called The Buzzards a few years back and we both consider ourselves songwriters. Another friend and fellow songwriter had recently sent out a list of his favorite records of the year. We discussed some of his choices. I told Jim all about a CD I'd been listening to lately that was inspiring me to write more songs.

We passed a few other hikers here and there. It was good to see other folks enjoying the trail on such a beautiful day. Chantry Flat was built at a time when Angelinos were flocking to the mountains to enjoy the natural beauty outside of the big city. A rustic resort called Sturtevant's Camp was constructed a little further up the trail from where we were going. Walking in the woods used to be a popular way for people to spend their leisure time. Nowadays most folks only seem to go for walks in shopping malls or on treadmills. But, happily, on Christmas Day there were plenty of people enjoying the trails of Big Santa Anita Canyon with Jim and Donza and me.

When we got back to the car, I still had a few almonds left and even a little water. We asked around to see if we could borrow someones cell phone, but it turned out that there wasn't any service up there. We hadn't thought of that. We scouted around again to see if we could find a pay phone. Still no luck. Outside the Ranger's office, I saw a guy throwing some stuff into a dumpster. I called to him, asking if he knew if there was a payphone around. He said there wasn't, but we might be able to get cell service if we walked down the road a bit. I told him we'd locked our phones in the car, so he offered to open the Ranger's office for us. But, when I went to find Jim, he'd already gotten access to land-line at one of the private residences and was on 'hold' with Triple-A.

When he got off the phone, Jim told me someone would be up to help us within an hour. That didn't seem so bad. We went back to the car to wait. By this point I kind of wished we had those turkey sandwiches I'd packed. We ate a few almonds and sat on the low stone wall across from the car. It wasn't late, but the canyon was in full shade already. And the wind was picking up. It was definitely getting cooler. I had a long sleeved shirt and a windbreaker in the car. Along with my cell phone. And those sandwiches. With the dark rye bread, made with black strap molasses. And spicy hummus.

Over the next hour, we saw many cars heading back down the mountain. Not too many coming up, though. The wind was blowing pretty steadily and it was cold. I jumped up onto the stone wall several times to try and keep warm, but my legs were kind of tired from the hike. We decided to move back across the road to get out of the wind, but it didn't make much difference. At least I had my poetry journal. I could always write a poem about how two idiots froze to death on Christmas Day in the middle of a National Forest.

Jim went back to call Triple-A again, while I waited with Donza. She was not thrilled about sitting around doing nothing while other dogs were off frolicking and smelling each other and such. But we had to keep her restrained or she'd try to mix it up, and that would spell trouble.

Jim returned with not-so-good news. The Triple-A Operator had said they sent a guy up to Chantry Flat, but somehow he didn't see us. Which was ridiculous, because we were literally the first car you would see if you drove up there. The Operator also said that they wouldn't be able to send another truck up the mountain because the road was closed due to a forest fire. This was also ridiculous because Jim was standing next to the Forest Ranger at the time and he said there was no fire. Nevertheless, the best she could do was call the local police and maybe they would come up and help us.

The whole phone-call process had taken about a half hour, during which time it had gotten darker and colder. Jim suggested that we might have to break a window. During our earlier scouting expedition, I had noticed several tools up around the pack store that might be utilized for breaking into a vehicle. I was in favor of prying open the trunk and climbing in through the back seat, a technique I'd seen work once before. Smashing the window seemed extreme to me. But Jim thought that prying the trunk would cause more damage and cost more money than simply replacing a window. We decided to wait a little longer to see if the cops showed up. We'd feel pretty dumb if we smashed the window two minutes before the cops arrived.

Over the next forty-five minutes or so, we saw almost every car exit the Chantry Flat parking area and not a single one come up the road from town. It seemed that maybe the Triple-A Operator was right and the road was closed. We were both pretty cold by now. My teeth were chattering and I was too tired to jump up and down anymore. I was out of almonds and water and the wind was getting relentless. Time for desperate measures.

I walked up the trail to the pack store, where I'd seen an axe leaning against a stack of wood. On the way I passed a woman who was grilling steaks. I don't really eat red meat anymore, but those steaks smelled awful damn good to me. I got to the parking lot for the pack store and looked around for the axe. It was pretty dark and I couldn't remember exactly where I'd seen it. Luckily there was a nearly-full Christmas Moon shining through the trees. I poked around an old shed that had a 'No Trespassing' sign on it, then went over to the front of the store. Suddenly, a bright light blinded me. It must have been on a motion sensor. It lit up the whole parking lot, including the stack of wood where the axe was. I grabbed the axe and headed back down the trail.

As I sauntered down the trail towards the car, I heard a gaggle of teenage girls waiting by the entrance to the main parking area. For a moment, I pictured myself from their point of view, hunched over and shivering, stumbling down the trail in the moonlight in a nearly deserted picnic area on Christmas Day -- carrying an axe. "Welcome to the Overlook Hotel!" I could see the headlines: "CRAZED AXE FIEND TERRORIZES INNOCENT SCHOOLGIRLS IN NATIONAL FOREST." I wondered what would be the proper course of action. Should I try to hide the axe from view by holding it behind my back? Or would that just make matters worse? Should I swing the axe freely by my side, devil-may-care, its sharpened blade glinting in the silvery moonlight? It seemed like a no-win.

Fortunately, the teenage girls paid no attention to me whatsoever, and I slipped by without incident.

When I got back to the car I held out the axe for Jim, but he declined, asking me to do the honors. I really didn't want to be the one to smash his car window. I'd never smashed a window before. At least not on purpose. But I'd seen it done on TV and it didn't look so hard. Besides, my sandwiches were in there.

I picked up the axe and swung for dead-center. Not too hard, but with a clean, firm strike. CRASH! The window exploded into a thousand nuggets of glass. I was shocked for a moment. It really had been easy. And now we were in!

Jim unlocked the doors and got into the car. He tried the ignition, but... nothing. The battery was dead. He had left the ignition in the "on" position. No problem, we could always give it push start. But first we tried flagging down a driver to see if they had any jumper cables. I think it was the van full of teenage girls I'd passed earlier. They had no cables. At about the same time, another van came up the road and went into the parking area. Jim and I were talking about how to push-start the car when the other van came by again. I flagged him down.

"Can you give us a jump?"

"It's the least I can do."

It was Triple-A. He had just made it up the road.

Turns out, this was the second Triple-A van that had been sent up the mountain to rescue us. The first one had literally burst into flames halfway up the road. The driver pulled over and jumped out just in time. The road had been closed for the past two hours while they put out the fire. The driver was unharmed, but apparently his wife was pregnant and due to go into labor any minute.

A few minutes later we were back in the car, engine running, heat on full, and headed down the mountain. I took out one of my sandwiches and handed half to Jim. I'd been describing them to him for the past three hours and he was looking forward to them as much as I was. They were delicious. Whole rye meal with black strap molasses, turkey pastrami, and spicy hummus. Best sandwich ever.

As we wound down the road back to civilization, we came upon a crazy sight. Blue, red and yellow lights flashing. Three fire trucks, two State Troopers, an ambulance, the Triple-A van, and another van that was little more than a burned-out shell. We stopped. The owner of the Triple-A van came up to our window with one of the Troopers. He asked us if we were the ones who had called for assistance, as if to prove to the Trooper that he was telling the truth. The Trooper just nodded and told him not to worry about it. I asked about the first driver's pregnant wife. The owner said she was fine -- she hadn't had the baby yet.

So that was nice.

We drove back down the winding road towards home, enjoying the rest of our amazing sandwiches, guided by the wondrous light of the blessed Christmas Moon.

Kerouac

2009-12-15T09:01:00.001-08:00

"These roads don't move, you're the one that moves."

I wrote a novel once, back when I was young and still believed in everything. It was the true story of a cross-country journey I took in a Volkswagen bus with my old buddy Ray. The stated purpose of the journey was to track down another old buddy who'd gone off the radar -- or so we believed. The true purpose of the journey came to reveal itself in other ways, such as the writing of the novel.

The true purpose of the journey may continue to reveal itself, as I continue to retrace the seemingly disconnected routes of my past.

One thing I do know -- there was another Presence riding along with us in that old VW. An unseen Guide, who whispered strange incantations during lonely stretches of endless moonlit highway, and howled with crazy Zen laughter in the mist-laden dawn. His name was Jack Kerouac.

Like everybody else, I first learned about Kerouac from his novel, On The Road. Reading On The Road was like a rite of passage, an initiation into the counterculture, the Boy Scout Manual for Bohemians. On The Road was the beginning of a journey that wound its way through the mythological landscape of the American soul, with a Charlie Parker soundtrack playing on the dashboard radio and the ghosts of forgotten poets towering above the distant horizon. It was a call to action, a prayer for deliverance. It made a young man want to move.

So, one crisp spring morning, I set out from Middletown, Connecticut, with my thumb stuck out over Route 9, headed south. I hitched my way down to North Carolina where I met up with Ray, on his way east from Illinois. We had little money and nothing to eat. We slept on the cold ground and wandered under the hot sun. We visited some girls we knew from high school, hoping they would fall in love with us.

But they didn't.

We hitched our way west to Nashville and stayed with another old buddy named Gary. Got drunk and slept it off. Then hitched north, back home to Louisville. All along the way, we met crazy characters and saw wondrous visions. We talked about Life and Love and Music and Truth. We lived in the moment. And we kept moving.

We were on the road.

About a year later, it was time to move again. Winter this time, and I had a vehicle. A blue and white Volkswagen bus with the middle seat taken out. Just a simple caravan, a Conestoga wagon for crossing the Great Plains. We had different reasons for making the trip -- to go to California, to find a lost friend, to continue on our journey. But once we got going, we knew why we were there. The wheels rolling under us, the road spooling out endlessly ahead. The past disappearing in the rear-view. The future just beyond the windshield.

I kept a journal of our voyage -- it seemed like things were unfolding in important and historic ways that had to be recorded. Life had become a novel. Fiction was reality. We were characters, living chapter to chapter. We didn't know what was coming until it happened. Each day was written fresh and then the page was turned.

We got a small apartment in Oakland near Lake Merritt. We got jobs. We worked and slept, ate and drank. Went to movies and concerts. We found our errant friend and failed to lure him home. We argued, commiserated, dreamed and planned. Pages turned. Chapters were written.

A couple of years later, when I actually began the task of transforming my road-journal into a full fledged road-novel, I read Ann Charters' biography of Kerouac, and learned a bit about his unconventional writing methods -- some of which I adopted. As I wrote, carving out chapters from the various scattered episodes and stringing them together in a structure that felt logical, I began to see some sense in what had happened. Or perhaps I imposed some sense onto what had happened. Either way, I was creating order from chaos and finding meaning in the void. I was being a writer.

My one unbending principle was that everything I wrote had to be absolutely true. I believed that telling the truth would give my story a noble authority that would elevate it beyond the reach of my meager talents. I have since discovered that what is true is not always worth telling -- and what's worth telling is not always true. But back then, in the spirit of Kerouac, I wrote exactly what happened, exactly the way it happened.

Of course, the names were changed to protect the (not so) innocent.

After that fabled journey, there were many others. Three more times across the country -- once using the same auto-driveaway service that Kerouac used. Several hitchhiking adventures, including a wild ride through Pennsylvania in a van full of hippies. And one late-night, high-speed run through Alabama that ended up with me leaning against the hood of an Oldsmobile while a State Trooper pointed a shotgun at my head. I even went on the road in Europe, driving from Paris through the Swiss Alps into Italy and then by ferry to Corsica and back into France. That trip felt a little more like Hemingway than Kerouac.

But all of that, as they say, was long ago. I stopped driving, for the most part, when I moved to New York City. My old Plymouth Valiant, which I had operated for years without the benefit of license or registration, sat in my sister's driveway, having become a combination mouse condo and canoe rack. I took the train or the bus instead of driving. Most of my wanderings consisted of long walks on the streets of Manhattan and Brooklyn.

Here in LA, one spends quite a bit of time behind the wheel, and I often found it a relief to park the car on Friday night and not see it again until Monday morning. But I did enjoy a very memorable drive down the coast one summer with my nephew. We started in San Francisco, where we visited the City Lights Bookstore and Jack Kerouac Alley, then headed south along the Pacific Coast Highway. We stopped for the night in Big Sur, where Kerouac lived one summer in a tiny cabin beneath the Bixby Canyon Bridge.

I didn't really know much about Kerouac's life in Bixby Canyon. I'd never read his book, Big Sur, about his attempt to escape the trappings of fame and alcoholism and find some kind of spiritual connection in the rustic tranquility of the California coast. I just knew that he'd lived there and that it was one of the most beautiful places on earth.

A few weeks ago, though, for my birthday, my Mom sent me a documentary called One Fast Move Or I'm Gone, which tells the story of Kerouac's Big Sur retreat. She heard about it on NPR, which my Dad listens to 24 hours a day, and thought I might like it. She was right -- I loved it.

Accompanying the DVD, there is a CD of songs by Ben Gibbard and Jay Farrar using Kerouac's words as lyrics. I've been listening to that CD non-stop since my birthday, and one song in particular has gotten stuck in my head. I hear it when I'm swimming. I find myself singing it when I'm out for a walk. The chorus goes: "These roads don't move, you're the one that moves."

At first I didn't know what that meant. It was just a catchy little phrase I kept repeating to myself. But as I listened more closely to the rest of the song, it started to make more sense. It was like Kerouac, still hovering over my shoulder on that moonlit highway, had one more mysterious message to impart. "These roads don't move..." All this restless wandering isn't taking you anywhere. "You're the one that moves." The transformation happens within.

After all these years, I guess I'm still on the road. I'm just not going anywhere.

Holy Grail

2009-11-17T13:08:00.001-08:00

There was a movie theater in Louisville called the Vogue, that used to show different movies every night for just a couple of bucks. The Vogue showed classic movies, foreign movies, art-house movies, independent movies. They ran The Rocky Horror Picture Show every week for 24 consecutive years. It was the last of the old single-screen theaters. Now it is gone. I saw some great movies there back in the 70's: A Clockwork Orange, Walkabout, Easy Rider, Frenzy, Last Tango In Paris, The Wicker Man, Five Easy Pieces, Woodstock, M*A*S*H, Dirty Harry, Murder On The Orient Express, Dr. Zhivago. Many more I can't remember. But of all the amazing movies I saw at the Vogue, I think the one that made the biggest impression on me was Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Prior to seeing the movie, most of what I knew about Monty Python came from their records. I used to hang around with a posse of nerds in high school and one of them, a guy from Texas of all places, had a collection of Monty Python records. As it turns out, the PBS television station in Dallas was the first station to broadcast episodes of Monty Python's Flying Circus -- so he had the jump on us in that department. I don't remember ever seeing the show in Louisville. Though I do recall seeing Eric Idle on Saturday Night Live a couple of times. And I have a vague memory of seeing the Nudge Nudge sketch on the Tonight Show.

Nevertheless, when my nerd buddies and I decided to do a comedy remake of A Man For All Seasons for our tenth grade English class (cleverly titled "A Man For All Seasonings") the Python influence was in full force.

In one pivotal scene from our movie, when Sir Thomas Moron is giving his famous "It's not that I believe it, but that I believe it..." line, the Duke of Norfuk breaks character and says "What the hell does that mean?" Moron replies "I don't know, it's in the script." He pulls a copy of the script out and points to the page in question. Norfuk grabs the script and looks at it in disbelief, saying, "it doesn't make any sense!" He then walks off camera, throwing the script down in disgust. Moron looks at the camera and pulls out a box of crackers, saying "and now for some nice Ritz Crackers!" He shoves an handful into his mouth and the scene ends.

We shot much of our movie "on location" i.e., in the woods near a babbling brook, in back of a liquor store, in the middle of a corporate office park. And since my 8mm camera had no sound, we carried a portable GE tape recorder around with us everywhere and recorded all of the dialogue on the spot. This turned out to be a big problem, since there was a lot of fumbling with the tape recorder, not to mention traffic noise, airplanes and the aforementioned babbling brook. So we had to re-record all of the dialogue in real time while watching the edited version of the movie. We gathered at the Texan's house for the recording session and spent most of the afternoon listening to Monty Python records before getting down to business. It was my first-ever looping session and it was a complete success. And I think it was the spirit of the Pythons that carried the day.

In the final scene of "Seasonings", Sir Thomas Moron wonders aloud if he has made the right choice in defying the King. He looks to the heavens and sees a vision of God (played by our bearded biology teacher) giving him a 'thumbs up' sign. The soundtrack swells with the sounds of Beethoven's Ode to Joy and the credits roll.

We considered it a masterpiece at the time -- though I'm not so sure our 10th grade English teacher appreciated it. The line "Neither food nor drink, Norfuk!" which got a big laugh in the classroom, didn't sit too well with her. My nerd crew and I went on to make other movies, including a mega-disaster flick called "Shake n' Bake" about a huge skyscraper that catches fire during an earthquake.

But "Man For All Seasonings" was our undeniable triumph.

So when I finally got the chance to see Holy Grail at the Vogue, I was completely blown away. From the very start, with the title sequence that opens with an ultra-serious look and dramatic classical score then quickly devolves into a mish-mash of mariachi music and llama jokes, I was choking with laughter. It was all there: the absurdism, the inane philosophical prattle, the parody of genre and the self-mocking lunacy. None of these things were necessarily new. Mel Brooks had done it. My nerd pals and I had done it. But Holy Grail managed to elevate this type of irreverence to the level of the sublime. Talk about a masterpiece!

Perhaps the most brilliant aspect for me was the idea of breaking frame. The idea that the movie is constantly referring itself, like the way that Kurt Vonnegut would break out of the anonymous confines of his role as author and address the reader directly, commenting on the novel as it was being written. Holy Grail is imbued with a sense of self-awareness that draws the viewer into the joke and allows us to laugh with the movie as well as at the movie. In the very first scene, we hear the clip-clop of horses hooves and see a helmeted head bobbing up and down, expecting to see the familiar sight of a knight on horseback. Instead, the horse is revealed to be a man clapping together a pair of hollow coconut halves to simulate the sound of hoof-beats. And rather than let that joke simply lie there, more attention is drawn to it when Arthur gets caught up in a discussion of how a coconut may or may not have been carried to the shores of medieval England by a migrating swallow. All played in complete earnest.

Later, when approaching Camelot, one character points out, "it's only a model." And when Arthur and his men finally reach the Bridge of Death, they meet up with "the old man from scene 24." But the best frame-breaking joke of the movie comes when a "Very Famous Historian" is murdered by one of Arthur's knights. The police are called in to investigate and ultimately catch up with Arthur and Bedivere just before they are set to storm the Grail Castle. The knights are arrested and hauled into a police van. Then a police Inspector turns to the camera and says, "All right, put that away sonny." He puts his hand over the lens and the film abruptly ends. It's pure genius.

Of course I couldn't help noticing certain similarities between "A Man For All Seasonings" and Holy Grail. There were the obvious frame-breaking script references, the documentary-style realism, and the inane philosophical arguments. They even used our "God" cameo -- though in their case, God was a Terry Gilliam animation and not a scruffy high-school biology teacher. The fact is, Holy Grail and "Seasonings" were produced at roughly the same point in time. And though the Pythons had a slightly bigger budget and a bit more talent, we shared an attitude with them that gave us the freedom to do and say whatever we wanted in our film, so long as we thought it was funny. There were no rules, only conventions. And conventions were made to be subverted.

I recently watched a six-part documentary about Monty Python called Monty Python Almost the Truth. I was fascinated by all of the behind-the-scenes information, the history of how they all got together and the discussions of where certain sketches came from. But the most interesting segment was the one about Holy Grail. The Pythons revealed how little they knew about making a movie, how little time and money they had, how the camera broke on the first day of shooting, how they got kicked out of their locations and had to shoot most of the various "castle" scenes in the same place. And it all seemed very familiar. And it occurred to me that the lack of resources and experience and equipment contributed to the brilliance of the movie. Because when you are forced into a corner, you often come up with your best work.

I would love to go back and look at "A Man For All Seasonings" again. I'm not sure where it ended up. Or if the film and the soundtrack are even in the same place. Maybe someday I will dig it up and restore it. But the memory of that early attempt is indelible. Just like my memory of watching Monty Python and the Holy Grail at the Vogue theater in Louisville.

Now go away or I shall taunt you a second time!

Albion House

2009-10-15T20:42:00.000-07:00

Bridgekeeper: Stop. What... is your name?
Galahad: Sir Galahad of Camelot.
Bridgekeeper: What... is your quest?
Galahad: I seek the Grail.
Bridgekeeper: What... is your favourite colour?
Galahad: Blue. No, yel...

Last month I spent a wonderfully refreshing week at my parent's place in Maine. I did a little running, a little swimming, even some kayaking. I also spent some time up in the loft, plowing through some of the boxes I have stashed up there, looking for evidence of my past accomplishments. In particular I was looking for some videos from my foray into stand-up comedy, including a feature about me that appeared on CNN.

It was my fifteen minutes of fame, even though it only lasted about two minutes.

I actually found more than I was looking for. Besides the CNN tape and some brief bits I did for an early Comedy Central experiment called Stand-Up To Go, I also found some rare video of couple of gigs I played when I was going through my folk-singer phase.

It was fascinating to look back after all these years and see this pale, skinny kid with a full head of hair getting up in front of crowds of people and acting like he actually knew what he was doing. If I didn't know any better, I would think this kid was fearless and confident. But I happen to know that he was, in fact, terrified and filled with doubt. And yet, the amazing thing is, you really can't tell. Regardless of the quality of the performance, the overall effect is that the performer seems to believe in himself.

And that really is half the battle.

After a few days in Maine, my folks and I went down to Connecticut to attend my niece's wedding -- which was awesome. We stayed around my sister's house for a while, bulking up on leftover wedding food, before driving to my parent's condo in Florida. I went along as a kind of 'go-to' driver, to take the wheel whenever my Mom needed a break. She did a heck of a lot of driving, though. My Dad doesn't really drive anymore, but he's probably logged more miles than any of us, commuting to work for forty years or so. He spent much of the trip chilling out in the back seat listening to NPR downloads on his iPod.

When we got to Florida, I had a few days to relax before flying home to LA. I did some more swimming, went on a few walks with my Dad, and one particularly hot day, I climbed up into the attic to plow through several more boxes of my so-called archives. This time, however the object was not to find items of interest, but to get rid of as much as possible. And I did manage to drag down a couple boxes of books which my Mom can donate to the local library. But I also found a few more treasures from my long lost past, including two novels, a pile of short stories, a ton of song lyrics and a whole box filled with photographs.

Most of the photos were from the mid to late eighties when I lived in Washington DC -- a period of my life I have been attempting to suppress for many years. A lot of good things happened during this time, but they were all pretty much overshadowed by the disastrous ending of a major relationship. So, when I ignominiously left DC for good, I crammed all of the mementos from that time into a bunch of banker boxes and stashed them at my parent's house in Connecticut. And when my parents moved to Florida, my boxes moved with them. The next time my parents move, they are hoping they won't have to haul a bunch of my boxes with them. Hence the sweaty day spent in the attic, trying to decide what to keep and what to trash.

Surprisingly, instead of ignoring the box of photos, I found myself looking through it, and occasionally even smiling. There were some photos of my old rock band The Charismatics, some pics of family get-togethers, shots of my old housemates from DC, and of course many pictures of me with my girlfriend, Sue, who later became my ex-girlfriend, Sue, and eventually "She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named." There were pictures of the two if us in DC, hiking in Virginia, travelling in Europe and Egypt, at the beach, with my family, and even a few from a trip we took to Northern California when I was working as a paralegal on a big case in San Francisco.

I was spending several weeks at a time at a temporary trial office in San Francisco, so Sue decided to fly out and join me for my birthday. We took off one Friday afternoon and drove up north to see the redwood groves in Humboldt County. We spent all day Saturday hiking through the incredible Redwoods State Park, marvelling at the majestic trees and drinking in the beauty of the unspoiled groves. On the way back, the night before my birthday, we found a cozy little seaside inn with rustic cabins overlooking the Pacific. The cabins had little more than a bed, a bathroom and a wood stove. No electricity. No phone. Just the fire and the ocean and the two of us.

It was pretty romantic.

The next morning, on my birthday, Sue snapped a photo of me standing in the doorway of our cabin, named "Albion House." And when I looked at that photo in my parent's attic, so many years later, I was amazed. Amazed at how happy I was. Amazed at how young I was. But especially, amazed at how good it made me feel. Instead of making me even more depressed about all that has been lost, all I did wrong, all I wish had been, and all I wish had never been, it felt good to remember that morning, that beautiful perfect morning by the sea, on my birthday, deeply in love, with all of life and nature in harmony.

In one of the Grail legends, young Percival finds the Grail Castle, meets the Fisher King and actually sees the Grail. But, failing to ask the magical question that would heal the ailing King, Percival finds himself back on the outside, with no castle in sight and only a dim memory of the glory he once beheld. He vows to find the Castle again, and in his later years, he does accompany Galahad to finally complete the mission.

When I look at the picture of me in the doorway of the Albion House, named for the very British Isles where the Grail quest took place, I see a young Percival -- about to cross the threshold out of the Grail Castle, without a clue that he has failed to accomplish his task and will not be able to return to the Grail Castle for many years, or maybe ever.

But, for that one shining moment, he is in the presence of the divine, filled with the grace of God, and ready to take on the whole world.

I have since tried to find the Albion House, but I'm afraid that, like the Grail Castle, it has vanished -- replaced by upscale luxury seaside cottages complete with hot tubs, cable TV and Wi-Fi. But I will continue my search for the Grail Castle. And maybe I can take a lesson from that pale skinny kid with the full head of hair, who had no idea what he was doing and was filled beyond reason with doubt and terror -- but at least he was out there trying.

And this time, if I find the Grail Castle again, I will know what question to ask. I will heal the Fisher King. I will bring peace and joy back unto the Kingdom. Because, although I am still terrified, now I actually do know what I'm doing.

Mullis!

2009-09-15T13:52:00.000-07:00

"Mawidge...mawidge is what bwings us togewer today... Mawidge, the bwessed awwangement, that dweam wiffim a dweam..."

One of the best things about weddings is the way they bring together two completely different groups of people, who would normally never have anything to do with each other, and turn them into one big family. My family just got a whole lot bigger on Saturday with the marriage of my niece Annie to her new husband Tony. The wedding took place in Connecticut, in the quaint little town of Bethlehem, about a stone's throw from where my sister Cindy lives. But you would have thought it was just down the road from Buffalo, because that's where Tony's family is from -- and boy did they ever turn out for this shindig.

I had the pleasure of meeting Tony's family one Thanksgiving a couple of years ago. His brother Mike was working in Las Vegas and I drove out there from LA with Annie and Tony to join them all for the holiday. I had already met Tony's mother, Sue, since she had been out to visit LA a few times and had even come to see The Buzzards. In fact she was one of our most ardent supporters. So I already knew that meeting the rest of the family would be a treat.

With a mom as cool as Sue, how could you go wrong?

We had a great time in Vegas. Thanksgiving at Mike's was excellent. I met Tony's dad, Mario and his sister Christina and brother Nick. We watched football and ate turkey and I heard some inside dope on Tony. Later on, Mario, Tony, Mike and I played a little blackjack at the Hooters casino. We each managed to lose about twenty bucks. It was a little distracting in there. But not for the reason you would think -- the place was under construction and it felt like we were playing in battle zone.

At one point, Mario and I went for a long walk together. We strolled through Caesar's Palace, The Bellagio and a couple of other hotels. We must have walked at least four miles and almost all of it was indoors.

Vegas, baby!

The whole time I was with Tony's family, I felt like I had known them for years. It was instantly comfortable. Even just standing around waiting for the elevator was fun with them. Being so far from my own family, it was great to have such warm folks welcome me into their midst.

So, ever since I heard that Annie and Tony were getting married, I've been looking forward to seeing them all again. And this time they really would be part of my family. Bonus!

The wedding, which was completely envisioned, planned and executed by Annie, was unique and personal in every way, from the setting to the wardrobe to the catering to the centerpieces. Every aspect was marked by flair, intelligence and individuality -- just like Annie.

I was asked to do a reading during the ceremony, which apparently made me a lot more nervous than I thought. As I was driving my parents from the hotel to the historic estate where the wedding was being held, I thought I would take a "shortcut" down a road I thought I knew fairly well. See, some years ago, I lived in my sister's basement while working for the swimming pool company where Annie's dad worked. We used to drive all over the area, fixing pools and such. So, I thought I knew where I was going.

But I didn't.

Also, did I mention we were late?

So, as we headed down Flanders Road, plunging deeper and deeper into the bucolic landscape of Nowheresville, Connecticut, I began to get a sinking feeling. I imagined the whole wedding party standing there waiting for me as I rushed up to make my little speech, out of breath and barely able to speak.

But by some quirk of dumb luck, Flanders Road really did turn out to be a shortcut. Not the shortcut I thought it was, but a shortcut nonetheless. We got there in plenty of time. I was still so nervous that I literally couldn't speak -- but a nice bartender helped out with a needed gulp of water and then I was fine.

And as soon as I saw Annie, I forgot all about my silly worries. She was so lovely. And everything was so perfect. And Tony was there -- the luckiest man alive. And my family. And my new family. It was really one of the most wonderful days I've ever known.

Then came the reception. We had been worried about the weather for days, but luckily the rain held off for the ceremony. The reception took place under a massive tent, put up by the company Annie's brother Chris works for. With beautiful flowers supplied by Annie's stepmom, centerpieces crafted from fruit jars and raw wood, assembled by members of the family. In fact, the whole operation was a family affair, including members of the far-flung extended family who'd come all the way in from Los Angeles where Annie and Tony first met.

It was a testament to Annie's creativity as well as the love that holds this amazing group together. Annie and Tony's LA friends have made me feel as welcome as Tony's family did. And now, meeting even more of Tony's family and friends, I was struck by the realization that every single person I've met through Tony is one of the nicest people I've ever met. And that makes sense to me, because Annie is one of the nicest people in the world. And if anyone were going to be lucky enough to marry Annie, it could only be a guy as great as Tony.

But the magic of Annie's wedding didn't end there. It seemed like, in addition to bringing together the members of two new families, there was also a bringing together of some of the members of old families as well. Watching Annie dance with her father felt like a moment I had been waiting for most of her life. Once the greatest of pals -- now getting a second chance to remember the love that will always bind them.

As I listened to Tony's sister Christina, in a moving and heartfelt toast, refer to Annie as one of her best friends, and then my sister Cindy expressing the same feelings about Tony's mother, I realized that this wedding was so much bigger than two people. It was truly a wedding of families. Old and new. Literal and figurative. East Coast and West.

After the wedding, I got a chance to hang out and reconnect with my own family, whom I never get to see enough. I had some great talks with my sister Susan and learned how to grade English papers from Cindy.

Next comes a road trip to Florida with my parents. That may be a little too much bonding, actually.

But I will come away from this experience a richer man. Richer in friends and family and love.

Thank you, Annie and Tony, for sharing your miracle with us.

"I am (not) a racist."

2009-08-15T16:28:00.000-07:00

It seems that whenever any white person gets caught doing something overtly racist, the first thing they do is get in front of the nearest TV camera and say, "I'm not a racist." Because no matter what you really think, the one thing you can never do is admit to being a racist. In fact, I bet if you did a survey of all the white people in America you would find that almost none of them are racists.

But I am.

For most of my life, I didn't know I was racist. My parents raised me to to treat everybody the same, just like Jesus. But we really didn't know any black people we could treat 'the same.' My Dad had one black co-worker at GE, whose son Eric went to my high school. We weren't really friends, but we were friendly. I remember once my parents had Eric's parents over to our house for a party. Apparently this created quite a scandal in our all-white Louisville neighborhood.

Even in the 'progressive' atmosphere of Wesleyan University, I didn't meet many black students. There were none in my freshman dorm. In the dining hall, all the black students sat together in one corner. Many of them lived in a 'special interest' dorm called Malcolm X House. I spent one evening at Malcolm X house with my friend Mark, who was dating a woman who lived there. I felt kind of like a tourist.

I spent some time in Texas where I worked construction with a black guy named J.J. for a while. We got along O.K. I went to his house once. Felt like a tourist.

When I lived in Washington, D.C., the only black people I knew were the legal secretaries and the guys from the mailroom at the prestigious law firm where I worked. There were no black lawyers there. The part of D.C. where I lived, called Northwest, was where almost all of the white people lived. Even on the subway, I was pretty much surrounded by white people every day. I don't recall that this ever seemed odd to me. Although I remember going to a Grateful Dead concert at RFK stadium one hot summer day with some Russians who were visiting America for the first time. At one point, one of the Russians remarked, "the only black people here are working here."

Sometimes it takes an outsider to point out the obvious.

After I left D.C., I moved to Brooklyn and lived in a neighborhood that was 'in transition'. That meant that white people were moving in and buying up the old brownstones and the black people had to move out. I now had actual black neighbors, including The Rev. Al Sharpton, who lived one block down. When I rode the subway into Manhattan every morning, there were as many, if not more, blacks than whites on the train. There were also Hispanics, Asians, Persians, Russians, Jews, Muslims, Gays, Lesbians, Transvestites, Homeless People, Crackheads, and Panhandlers. I was a long way from Louisville.

The law firm where I worked, which was Rudy Giuliani's old firm, actually had one black partner. For a few months I even had a black co-worker. He told me he got the job because he went to the same college as the black partner. He spent most of his spare time calling up other black paralegals and lawyers on a list he got from his alumni office. He was a networker. He had to be.

One night, I was coming home late from a movie. I had stopped off for a beer or two, so it was pretty late when I got out of the subway, just a few blocks from my apartment. I started to cross the street and noticed a black man waiting on the opposite corner. For a moment, I got nervous. 'What's he doing hanging out on the corner this late at night? Is he going to mug me?' Then I noticed that on the other corner was another black man talking on the pay phone. I immediately felt guilty. The first guy was probably waiting for his friend to get off the phone. (Because all black people know each other.) How racist of me to assume he was a mugger.

I continued across the street and down the sidewalk. As I did, I heard the second guy hang up the phone and walk towards the first guy. A moment later I heard the scuffle of shoes on concrete coming from over my right shoulder. Before I had a chance to process that information, I had an arm around my neck and I was gasping for breath. It was a big arm, a muscular arm, a black arm.

A voice behind me said "Don't do nothin'." I wasn't about to. The second guy quickly searched my pockets and took my wallet. I think I may have tried to say something, but I couldn't speak. Or breathe. Suddenly, the lights went out.

When I opened my eyes, the world had gone cockeyed. There was a tree growing out at a right angle from the wall I was leaning against. My head felt warm. My glasses were gone.

It took a full minute for me to figure out that I was lying on the sidewalk. My attackers were long gone. My glasses were next to me, unbroken. I tried to stand up, but the sidewalk was tilting back and forth. I sat there for a while. The street was completely deserted. Eventually, I got up and walked home. My head was pounding from the huge bump I'd received from being dropped onto the concrete. But I was alive. And that was something.

I called the police and they took me to the hospital where I sat in the waiting room for what felt like hours. Then someone led me to a room with an x-ray machine and had me lay on a steel table. I was in there for another twenty minutes before they let me go. The technician kept pressing my head against the table to get the x-ray. I told him that the reason I was there was because I had a big goddamn bump on the back of my head and that when he pressed my head against the steel table it really, really hurt. He did not seem concerned.

By the way, for the record, the cops and the x-ray tech were white.

I had to wait for a white doctor to look at my x-ray before they let me go home. It was now about four a.m. I had no money and no-one to call to ask for a ride. I was deep in the heart of Bedford-Stuyvesant, one of the toughest neighborhoods in Brooklyn. That means that only low-income black people live there.

The two mile walk from the hospital through Bed-Sty to my apartment in the pre-dawn darkness was one of the longest journeys of my life. My only consolation was that, if I were to be mugged again, I had nothing left for anyone to steal.

So I had that going for me.

For the next couple of months, I was a little freaked-out. Apparently I was suffering from a mild form of post-traumatic stress brought on by the combination of the mugging and the head injury. Since, as a temp, I had no health insurance, I had to rely mainly on the advice and comfort of friends and co-workers during this period.

The good news was, I did get my wallet back. Apparently the muggers tossed it onto a rooftop after removing the twenty dollar bill I had gotten from an ATM less than an hour earlier. Someone found it and turned it in to the police. All in all, I hadn't fared too badly. Little bump on the head, loss of twenty bucks, replace my credit cards -- not exactly a catastrophe. But there was one lingering effect.

A couple of weeks after I was mugged, I was riding the subway. A black man got on and stood next to me. I was sitting and he was standing, so his forearm was right at my eye level. It was a big arm, a muscular arm, a black arm. The sight of that arm sent me into an instant flashback -- I couldn't breathe, my heart was pounding, I felt dizzy and sick. Not until he moved away did I begin to feel better. He was a complete stranger to me. And I hated him.

Months later I was walking down a gravel path when jogger came up behind me. I heard the scuffle of his footsteps coming over my right shoulder and I froze in fear -- expecting to see that black arm encircle my throat. But it passed.

That was many years ago. Fortunately, I no longer freak out when I see black men with muscular forearms. I do still get a little jumpy when I hear footsteps over my right shoulder, though.

So, the other night I was walking down Santa Monica Boulevard. Not late. Not deserted. Shops and restaurants were open, cars passed by. Just ahead of me was a solitary black man, walking in the same direction. I guess I was walking faster than he, because I drew closer to him as we neared the corner. But then, he stopped walking and moved over to the side, by the entrance to a tailor shop. I couldn't help thinking he was specifically waiting for me to pass, but I wasn't sure why. As I went by him and stepped into the street, I glanced back over my right shoulder and noticed he was walking again, right behind me.

The same feelings of suspicion overcame me. 'Why is this guy following me? Is he going to mug me?' And as before the suspicion was immediately followed by guilt. 'Am I afraid of him just because he's black? Am I really such a racist?'

And the answer is, "yes." I was afraid of him because he was black, just as he was probably afraid of me following him because I am white. No matter how hard I try to force myself not to prejudge people, I do it anyway. I do it all the time. I do it even when I think I'm not doing it.

When I saw the two black men hanging out on the corner in Brooklyn, I was nervous because they were black. Then I felt guilty, also because they were black. I made an error in judgment that night because I was so concerned about them being black that I forgot about the fact that they were TWO GUYS HANGING OUT ON THE STREET CORNER IN BROOKLYN AT TWO A.M.

Every time I tell this story, it is always the story of how I was mugged by two black guys. But that's not what happened. I was mugged by two MUGGERS. Why do I need to mention that they were black? Because, apparently, I see black people differently than I do white people. Whether they are muggers or lawyers or construction workers or secretaries or students or just some guy walking down the street. I see them as black first, people second. I do.

So, I think the first step in becoming a post-racist society is not electing a black president. The first step is realizing that we elected a president, who happens to be black. And we did it despite the fact that we are all still racists. Well, I am anyway.

Where's the TV camera?

Man on the Moon

2009-07-16T14:14:00.001-07:00

"If you believed they put a man on the moon..."

Somewhere, stashed away among the archives of my past, is the age-yellowed front page of the Louisville Courier Journal from July 20, 1969 featuring a color photo of astronaut Buzz Aldrin standing on the surface of the moon. I had that front page taped to the wall of my bedroom for years, along with my posters of Joe Namath, Peter Fonda and Raquel Welch. The posters are long gone, but I've been hanging onto that front page for forty years. I remember thinking that one day it would be a valuable piece of history. And I guess I was right, but not in the way I had imagined.

When I was a kid, space exploration was pretty much the coolest thing in the world. And it had nothing to do with beating the Russians or conquering the universe. It was about dreams and adventure and excitement: "to boldly go where no man has gone before."

Obviously TV shows like Star Trek and movies like 2001: A Space Odyssey played a big part in my fascination with space travel, but it was the reality rather than the fantasy that originally captured my attention. During one of our summer vacation trips to Florida, my family visited the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, then known as Cape Kennedy. We toured the gigantic Vehicle Assembly Building where the Saturn V rockets were assembled, and stood beside the massive 'crawler ' that transports the rocket to the launch pad. The sheer magnitude of these engineering marvels gave rise to the belief that, in this amazing modern world, almost anything was possible.

That belief was confirmed on July 20, 1969, when Neil Armstrong uttered those famous words, "One small step for man... one giant leap for mankind."

I had been following the mission with great interest, from the thrilling liftoff on July 16th, through the amazing 280,000 mile voyage from the earth to the moon. The night of the moon landing, my parents let me camp out on the floor in front of the TV with my blanket and pillow, to watch the incredible event. I must have fallen asleep a couple of times, but I do remember seeing Armstrong come down that ladder for the first time and kind of bounce down onto the dusty surface of the moon. It was like a dream come true. A man was actually walking on the moon! We had really done it.

The next day I couldn't wait to see the color pictures in the paper, even though I was still pretty bleary from my first all-nighter. I grabbed a pair of scissors and cut off the front page to hang on my bedroom wall in a place of honor. Today the moon, tomorrow -- who knows? That was the beauty of it. We could accomplish anything. And we would.

Less than a year later, however, our confidence was shaken by the nearly disastrous accident that befell Apollo 13. Although, as Ron Howard's excellent retelling of that event in the movie Apollo 13 shows, our ingenuity, intelligence and perseverance ultimately prevailed. But it was, no doubt, an object lesson in how dangerous things really were "out there."

But we kept learning and kept trying and, pretty soon, we were driving cars and hitting golfballs on the moon.

At some point during this period, on a trip to Washington D.C., my family visited the National Air and Space Museum. We got to take peek inside one of the Apollo command modules and stroll around a mock-up of the Lunar Excursion Module, the wacky looking bug-like contraption wrapped in gold foil that ferried the astronauts to and from the surface of the moon. And, of course, we saw the moon rocks. The fact is, the moon rocks did look a lot like certain earth rocks. Not like any rocks we had in Kentucky, mind you, but maybe like they had in Hawaii or New Mexico. But they were moon rocks! From the MOON! It was pretty amazing.

Of course it did not take long for the naysayers to start claiming that we had never really gone to the moon -- that the whole thing was just a hoax, a conspiracy. I never understood why anyone would believe that the moon landing was a hoax. First of all, why would you go to such lengths to fake a moon landing just to say you beat the Russians, and then repeat it five times? And why would you fake a failed mission to the moon?

But it was the era of Vietnam and Watergate and people did not believe in anything anymore. Anything good was phony and anything bad was true. It became cool to think that everything was a joke. Going to the moon was a big waste of time and money. What the hell did we want to go there for anyway?

Now of course, the idea of going to the moon seems quaint. Something dreamed up by a bunch of nerdy guys with crew cuts and short-sleeved oxfords. How silly. We should use our technology to make better phones and video games and stop wasting time on lame science fiction.

Yesterday, however, I watched the spectacular launch of the Space Shuttle Endeavour from Cape Canaveral and I must admit it was still pretty thrilling. And as it turns out, those nerdy guys from NASA never have given up on the dream. In fact, my cousin Randy is one of them. He's part of the team developing the next generation of manned spacecraft, called Orion. They are planning to go back to the moon in about ten years or so. And then maybe to Mars. And after that, who knows?

I guess my old, yellowed front page from July 20, 1969 is a valuable historical artifact. Maybe not to the rest of the world. But it still reminds me of the importance of having a dream and doing everything in your power to make that dream a reality.

Because the real 'final frontier' is the imagination.

The 'Bu

2009-06-15T17:05:00.000-07:00

"Alright, alright, alright..."

I had to get my car 'smogged' the other day. Normally this wouldn't be a problem -- my car tends to run pretty cleanly. But two years ago when I went in for my certification, my 'check engine' light was on, and that is an automatic 'fail.' They had to give me a tune-up, to the 'tune' of about two hundred dollars, before my car could pass the test. Funny thing is, the damn light came back on a couple weeks later and has been on ever since.

So, this time I went to get my engine 'checked' before my smog test. Once again, I had to shell out a couple hundred bucks to address the issue. And this time, I was told that I needed to drive the car sixty miles before I took the test -- in order to reset the 'check engine' light. The shop I went to last time never mentioned this. That could explain why the light came back on so soon -- they never really fixed the problem.

I have since changed mechanics.

Because I tend to put things off till the last minute, I had to make a sixty-mile road trip in order to reset the 'check engine' light before I missed the smog test deadline. I searched Google for a map showing a thirty-mile radius from my house.

As it turns out there is such a map.

I found a very specific map showing the entire greater Los Angeles area lying within a thirty-mile radius measured from an intersection about a mile from where I live. It's called the Thirty Mile Zone and it refers to the limit which union members in the 'industry' can be expected to commute without being paid travel expenses. Consequently, most television and movie production takes place within the Thirty Mile Zone. And the center of the TMZ (aka 'studio zone') is the intersection of La Cienega Blvd. and Beverly Blvd. (aka 'center of the universe'), which is a mere three-minute drive from my house.

And yes, that is whence the celebrity gossip website TMZ.com derives its name.

Looking at the map, I couldn't help noticing that the outer edge of the TMZ passes right through Malibu: The perfect destination for my little road trip.

My first trip to Malibu was over ten years ago with my buddy Brian. At that time, the famous Malibu pier was closed for repairs. We had some pizza and saw part of a documentary about the Malibu surf scene that featured iconic surfers Lance Carson and Miki Dora. Back in the Fifties, the Malibu surf scene was known only to a select few. Guys with names like "Tubesteak" and "Moondoggie" lived in grass shacks on the beach and dodged the cops when they weren't riding waves.

All that changed when a young girl named Kathy Kohner arrived on the beach one day, towing a surfboard nearly twice her size. Kathy wanted to learn to surf and she wasn't about to let her diminutive stature, or her gender, get in her way. The surfers tagged Kathy with the nickname 'Gidget,' short for 'girl midget.'

Kathy kept a journal of her Malibu adventures, which her father, who happened to be a screenwriter, turned into a book. The book became a series of movies and a TV sitcom. And Malibu was never the same again.

This time I decided to delve a bit deeper into the Malibu mystique. I visited a place called the Adamson House which occupies the land between the Malibu Lagoon and Surfrider Beach. Originally the land was a Chumash settlement. They called it "Humaliwo" which means 'the surf sounds loudly.'

The Spanish first arrived in Humaliwo in 1542, but did not return again for over 200 years. When they did come back, they established a mission on the site and the Chumash got 'Christianized.'

Eventually, the land came into the hands of the Rindge family who fought several long, losing battles with the state of California to prevent construction of the Southern Pacific Railroad and the Pacific Coast Highway. The Rindges had at one time owned all of what is now known as Mailbu, but after losing so many legal battles, the widowed Mrs. Rindge was forced to sell off the property bit by bit. One of the tracts she sold became the Malibu Colony, an enclave of movie stars who wanted a retreat away from Hollywood. The Rindges also built the Malibu Pier, which was where they used to park their yacht.

When she started running out of cash, Mrs. Rindge began looking for oil. Instead she found mud. But not just any mud -- Malibu clay, which was ideal for tilework. She established a tile factory and created some of the most prized tiles in the world. The Adamson House is filled with decorative tilework both inside and out and is sometimes called the Taj Mahal of Tile.

I wandered the grounds for a while admiring the tile and spectacular view, but I still had a few more miles to drive until I reached my thirty-mile mark.

I decided to cruise up Malibu Road and get a look at the Malibu Colony. I pictured a kind of funky, ramshackle place where guys like Hal Ashby and Robbie Robertson used to live. But now it is just another gated community for big stars like Tom Hanks and Howie Mandel.

I continued north on Malibu Road. I used to know a guy who lived up along there. He was in a group of hikers that used to get together every weekend. We called ourselves Hike Club. One afternoon, following a long, hot hike in Solstice Canyon, we gathered at his beach house to cool off. Well, it was really his dad's beach house, but he lived there, too. It was pretty great, sitting on the deck, sipping a beer, watching the pelicans fly by. Later, we went for a dip in the Pacific. Very refreshing.

It's a nice way to live.

I think that's why I like the show Two and a Half Men so much. If I can't have my own Malibu beach house, I can at least pretend I live in Charlie Harper's Malibu beach house for a half-hour every week. Or every night, thanks to syndication. I even bought a couple Charlie Harper style bowling shirts at the thrift store. It's not quite the same, though.

At one point as I was heading up Malibu Road, I saw what appeared to be an opening that provided access to the beach. You rarely see the beach in Malibu. The houses are packed in so tight that a gnat couldn't squeeze through. Even though, legally, the beach belongs to everyone -- access to the beach generally belongs only to the rich folks. But thanks to group called Access For All, there are now dozens of public accessways leading to the beach.

Even in Malibu.

I happened to find one of these public easements nestled between two huge homes about halfway up Malibu Road. I walked down to the beach where one of the homeowners had tacked up a sign indicating that the area extending 25 feet seaward, to the mean high-tide line, was private property. Since the water was almost up to where the sign was posted, I wondered exactly where I was supposed to go. It didn't matter too much, though. Many of these homes were damaged in last year's fires and are in the process of being rebuilt. So I was free to roam the beach without stepping on anyone's toes.

So to speak.

After a brief walk on the beach, I headed up to the PCH and turned south. I immediately passed by the Malibu Bluffs Park and decided to stop in and take a look around. As I wandered the trails along the bluffs -- overlooking Malibu Road and the houses I'd just driven past -- I began to feel quite at home in Malibu. Like I belonged there. I could easily imagine a brisk morning run along the bluffs followed by a cool dip in the ocean. That's the way life was meant to be.

All I need is $15 or $20 million for a beach house.

Maybe someday I'll get that beach house. Or maybe just rent one for a while. I guess until then I can always watch another rerun of Two and a Half Men and pretend I'm Charlie Harper.

I already have the shirts.

Angels & Demons

2009-05-17T16:33:00.001-07:00

"Who do you think those people were? Those were not just some ordinary people. If I told you their names--I'm not going to tell you their names--but if I did, I don't think you'd sleep so well. "

It seems that, once again, the specter of The Illuminati has reared its ugly head, or should I say 'hood'? In the new Tom Hanks thriller, Angels & Demons, the nefarious Secret Society is conspiring to destroy The Vatican. And the only way to stop them is by following a set of clues they have left behind that will reveal their treacherous plot.

Or is it?

Perhaps it is all just a smokescreen, a cover-up, a clever bit of misdirection. After all, The Illuminati are notorious infiltrators who are constantly sending out mixed messages through the media to confuse and confound anyone who tries to penetrate their dark veil.

In fact, in the movie Angels & Demons, Tom Hanks's character Robert Langdon seems to spend most of his time defending The Illuminati. They are academics and truth seekers, like himself, who have been wrongfully maligned by the Church, just as he has. Certainly that doesn't excuse them from blowing up the Vatican, but as the plot thickens and the list of suspects grows, we are no longer certain who is behind this evil plot. Could someone be using the specter of The Illuminati as ruse to hide their own diabolical motives?

Or is the movie itself merely a ruse? Another brilliantly conceived Illuminati plot to divert our attention from their plan to take over the world?

Or have I been reading too many books and websites about Secret Societies and Conspiracy Theories?

It's possible.

In the course of doing some research on a new screenplay I'm writing, I have scoured the Internet and the local library for information on Secret Societies and Conspiracy Theories. And as far as Secret Societies and Conspiracy Theories go, there's no match for The Illuminati. They are the The Sine Qua Non of Secrecy, the All-Purpose Plot-hatchers, the Go-To-Guys of Gobbledygook.

One of my favorite Illuminati Conspiracy Theories involves the Mysterious Death of Stanley Kubrick. Apparently, shortly after delivering the final cut of his movie Eyes Wide Shut, Stanley died of a heart attack. Not so mysterious, you say, Stanley was seventy years old and had just completed a strenuous two-year-long production. He reportedly died peacefully in his bed at his home in England. These things happen.

But when you examine the many symbols and clues that Stanley included in Eyes Wide Shut, you find a veritable manifesto of Illuminati Secrets. Not to mention the infamous Masked Orgy sequence in the middle of the film that basically throws open the doors to a Secret Illuminati Ritual. Having thus violated the cloak of Illuminati Silence, Kubrick was murdered, both to prevent him from revealing more and as a warning to others.

Sure, plenty of movies have flirted with revealing Illuminati Secrets, but Eyes Wide Shut must have really struck a nerve.

The brilliance of Angels & Demons is that it talks directly about The Illuminati, but in a context that makes them seem like a relic of history, instead of the All-Pervasive Puppetmasters of the Modern World. But there they are on the big screen: Hidden In Plain Sight.

One of the methods used by The Illuminati to further their evil ends is Mind Control. Another Kubrick movie, A Clockwork Orange, uses Mind Control as one of its central plot devices. And after the movie was released in England, Kubrick received several death threats, forcing him to move behind the guarded walls of a secluded country estate. (Of course, guarded walls and secluded estates are no match for The Illuminati.) Kubrick also references Mind Control in Eyes Wide Shut, with several thinly veiled allusions to the CIA's MK-ULTRA project. As everyone knows, the CIA is riddled with Illuminati, via their exclusive Ivy-League conduit, the Skull and Bones. The same Skull and Bones, mind you, that brought us George W. Bush and his father George H.W. Bush, who in addition to being president was also director of the CIA.

MK-ULTRA pops up in another movie, aptly titled Conspiracy Theory, starring Mel Gibson and Julia Roberts. In it, Mel is a victim of an evil CIA psychiatrist (and obvious Illuminati member) played by Patrick Stewart. Julia is an attorney with the Justice Department who tries to help him. At one point, Mel explains to Julia the basic Conspiracy Theory premise: "A good conspiracy is unprovable. I mean, if you can prove it, it means they screwed up somewhere along the line."

In the movie Three Days of the Condor, CIA analyst Robert Redford discovers a conspiracy involving a 'CIA within the CIA'. Classic Illuminati tactics, by the way -- infiltrate a secret organization and subvert it from the inside out. Redford finds out that their plan is to invade a Middle Eastern Country to gain control of their oil production.

And that was way back in 1975!

Three Days of the Condor was directed by Sidney Pollack, who also played the part of Victor Ziegler, the Illuminati Overlord in Eyes Wide Shut.

Coincidence?

I think the best Conspiracy Theory movie of all time is the The Matrix, allegorical though it may be. The idea that we are all living in a fantasy world made up of a series of meaningless distractions while an Evil Controlling Entity is literally sucking the life out of us is just about the most perfect metaphor for Illuminati World Domination ever put on film.

But, in my research, I have found something that may be an even better Conspiracy Theory than The Illuminati. In her book 'Secret Societies', crackpot author Sylvia Browne suggests that there is a group so secret that NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD OF THEM! The group is composed of 22 members, who have infiltrated all of the other Secret Societies, INCLUDING THE ILLUMINATI!

I know!

And how does Sylvia know about them? She heard it from her spirit guide, "Francine".

Right?

And what is their purpose? World Domination, of course! To create a New World Order, i.e., a one-world government under American control. And they have formed numerous other Secret Societies as a smoke-screen to carry out their goals.

Now, I could tell you the name of this Super-Secret Society, but then, of course, I would have to kill you.

I may have said too much already. Maybe I'll write them into my screenplay. As long as I don't get too close to the truth. I don't want to end up like Stanley Kubrick.

Or do I?

It's No Secret

2009-04-15T23:27:00.000-07:00

A couple of years ago I was loitering in a photo gallery on Sunset Boulevard called Morrison Hotel. Theoretically, I was there to view the works of legendary rock photographer Henry Diltz. I had actually met Diltz at an opening there a few weeks earlier. We were standing in front of a picture he took of Jimi Hendrix onstage at Woodstock. And when I say 'onstage at Woodstock', I mean Diltz was literally standing on the stage about ten feet away from Hendrix. It suddenly occurred to me that the guy I was talking to was the guy who took the picture. Of Hendrix. Onstage. At Woodstock.

Turns out Diltz is a real nice guy. He told me some interesting stories about hanging out in Laurel Canyon with Joni Mitchell and Graham Nash, and touring with the Stones in '72. Unfortunately I didn't have any money, or I would have bought one of his photos.

At the Diltz opening I also met Claire, a lovely young woman who worked as the gallery's receptionist. We chatted about screenwriting. She had a semi-interesting idea that had something to do with being surrounded by all of those amazing photographs all day. Her idea reminded me of a Ray Bradbury story, which I mentioned, but she had no idea who Ray Bradbury was. She also told me about a book she'd read called The Secret, which had something to do with imagining your way to success and happiness. That reminded me of a book I'd once read called Creative Visualization. She'd never heard of that either.

I happened to find a copy of Creative Visualization in a used bookstore called The Bodhi Tree during one of my many walks around West Hollywood, and so I thought I'd stroll by the Morrison Hotel gallery one afternoon and drop it off for Claire. I thought it was a gallant gesture. She seemed unimpressed. We talked some more about The Secret, which was beginning to sound more and more like New Age Hooey. She tried to explain the core premise of The Secret, which is called the Law of Attraction. It states that your thoughts generate some kind of magic energy field that literally attracts what you desire.

Although it seemed a little silly to me at first, I thought I would give it a try. After all, I don't claim to have all the answers. Maybe Claire was really onto something. And, I knew exactly what to ask The Universe for: I wanted Claire. So, I thought about her. I even Googled her. And since she was not only a receptionist, but also an actress, I managed to find one of her headshots online. I put her picture on my computer and imagined how wonderful it would be if she and I were together. I felt confident and grateful that The Universe would manifest my desires.

A week or two later, I went to the gallery to give Claire a flyer for an upcoming Buzzards gig. She wasn't there. There seemed to be some uncertainty as to when she might be there again. I went back a week later to see if she had gotten the flyer. I had, of course, been imagining how great it would be when she came to the gig and saw me up onstage playing and singing with my band. So cool. I felt certain that she would soon be mine.

Oddly, though, Claire was not at the gallery when I went back. I don't know if she ever got my flyer. She didn't come to the gig. In fact, I never actually saw her again. Could it be that merely imagining that you will get something doesn't actually guarantee that you will get it?

I decided to forget about The Secret.

For the record, this was not the first time I had encountered such a philosophy. As a child, I remember seeing a copy of the book The Power of Positive Thinking in our house. And I recall my Dad telling me about the successful use of visualization in the training of Olympic athletes. During my research for my first screenplay "Merlin" I came across various texts which discussed the correspondence between conscious thought and manifest reality. That's when I first read the book Creative Visualization. I myself have practiced aspects of this method. For years I have been carrying around a copy of a $100,000 bill in my wallet to remind me that my prosperity is imminent. For years. I have also been a lifelong Hope addict and incurable optimist who has dedicated himself to the fulfillment of a nutty dream despite an avalanche of disappointment and rejection.

So, when I was browsing through the online catalog of the West Hollywood Library and saw the DVD version of The Secret, I decided to add it to my "on hold" list. Apparently, I was not the only person who had put The Secret on hold. In fact I believe I was around number one hundred and eighty three on the list. It took quite some time for me to finally get my notice from the library that The Secret was available for me to check out. The better part of a year at least. Maybe more.

I watched The Secret with a mixture of skepticism and hope. Part of me thought it might be good for a laugh, and part of me was thinking, 'Maybe...'

I was right about it being good for a laugh. There are all these goofball experts on there sharing half-baked anecdotes about how 'positive thoughts are 100 times more powerful than negative thoughts' even though negative thoughts have the same ability to attract things as positive ones. And how worrying about debt actually causes debt. Really? 'Cause I thought not paying your bills caused debt.

Mostly it was, as I had originally suspected, a lot of New Age Hooey. Although some of it was downright dangerous hooey, like the woman who claims to have cured her cancer by watching funny movies. Now, I'm all for holistic healing, but I don't think it's very responsible to recommend that people forgo their chemo in favor of Pauly Shore flicks. In fact, I think most people would find the chemo far less objectionable.

There was even a guy named Jack Canfield, co-author of Chicken Soup for the Soul, who said he made up a fake $100,000 dollar bill and put it in his wallet to remind him that his prosperity was imminent. He called it his "abundance check." And wouldn't you know, within a year he went from making $8,000 to nearly $100,000. In just one year! Asshole. I've been carrying around my goddamn fake $100,000 bill for nearly three and a half years. And I ain't got crap.

Sure, there's a certain amount of wisdom to focusing on the positive in life. But the fact is, only hot young women ever get their desires granted by The Universe, and when I say The Universe, I mean, of course, horny rich guys. The rest of us have to work for a living.

But my analysis of The Secret was not a total loss. As it happens, I watched The Secret the same week that the Republicans released their alternative budget. And I have to say that after years of failing to understand the conservative political ideology, I think I finally get it.

They believe in The Secret!

It's true. The key to understanding the Republican approach to governance can be found by applying the tenets of The Secret. Allow me to explain: The basic premise of The Secret is that what you desire will be attracted to you. However, and this is crucial, you will also attract what you don't want by harboring negative thoughts. That is why it is so important to focus on the positive.

Now, look at the Republican response to the failed economy. They want to freeze all further government spending. Why? Because by trying to "fix" the problem we are focusing our attention on what we don't want. But, by ignoring things like Unemployment and Debt we cease to call them into being and they simply go away. Regulation of banking and other industries is likewise a futile endeavor, for it is simply creating the expectation of failure. Instead we need to allow The Market (i.e., The Universe) to bestow its abundance upon us. Health Care? A no-brainer. The more money we spend trying to fight disease, the more disease there will be for us to fight.

It's frickin' brilliant.

Perhaps the most inspired of all Republicans is former President George W. Bush. He used The Secret to formulate an entire foreign policy. As it is explained in The Secret itself, rich powerful and successful people have known about The Secret for centuries. And who is more rich, powerful and successful than the Bush family? The Bush Doctrine relies on one of the fundamental principles of The Secret, that you must act as if what you seek is already manifest. So, if we believe that a country may someday pose a threat, we should invade that country as if the threat were real. If we believe that Saddam could have WMDs, we must bomb the crap out of Iraq as if those WMDs had actually been found.

In the end, The Universe will deliver unto us what we deserve. Peace, Security and Democracy For All.

Now that I understand the conservative mindset, it no longer confuses and frightens me. I realize that rich and powerful people are a lot like hot young women -- they really do believe that all their good fortune is a reward for being positive and righteous and has nothing to do with luck or circumstance. And so long as they keep getting what they want, they'll keep believing in The Secret.

As for me, I'm going to keep on thinking positively. But I'm not telling anybody what I'm wishing for. It's a secret.

The Walker

2009-03-16T18:08:00.000-07:00

It has been said that, "you can't go home again...but you can go back to PB." PB of course refers to the town of Pacific Beach, California. I know this because I was the one who said it. I lived in PB for about a year just after graduating from college. And I returned to PB just about four years ago, along with my friend Dave, to try and recapture a sense of my youth. What I found was that 'the sense of my youth' I was looking for was still lurking inside me. A few weeks ago, I went back to PB once again, to catch up with another old friend from long ago. His name is Ray Sharp.

By sheer coincidence, or perhaps fate, Ray had also lived in PB at one time. He had moved there while I was still in college, to track down a legendary athlete he'd read about in Sports Illustrated. See, when we were in high school back in Louisville, Ray and I were on the cross country team together. But one summer, after reading an article about racewalking "sports hippie" Ron Laird, Ray entered a local racewalk event and ended up winning it. That led to him competing in the AAU Junior National Championship in nearby Bloomington, Indiana. Which he also won. Next, Ray was off to the Ukraine to race against the Soviets. He brought me back a Russian-made Olympic gym-bag that, despite its godawful crappiness, I cherished as a prized possession for years to come -- until it literally fell apart.

In that one summer, Ray went from being just another high-school distance runner to an international sensation. He was now a walker. He had found his niche.

During our sophomore year of college, Ray and I packed up my old VW bus and drove from Louisville to San Francisco. We were on different quests, mine had to do with tracking down another friend who'd gone off the radar for a while. Ray, however, was there to begin his new life. We hooked up with another racewalker that Ray knew in Berkeley and he introduced Ray to the local scene. Berkeley had been Ron Laird's home base when the Sports Illustrated piece was written. But by the time we got there, Ron had moved. He now lived down south, in a place called Pacific Beach.

We hung around the East Bay for a while. Ray loved the temperate climate, which allowed him to train year-round. I found my 'lost' friend and determined that he wasn't in any mortal danger. Eventually, I went back to college. Ray moved down to Pacific Beach where he and Ron Laird became roommates.

I kind of lost track of Ray after that. His new life took him in a very different direction than mine. Both our parents had moved away from Louisville, so our paths weren't likely to cross very often. I did see him set a world record one night in the Millrose Games at Madison Square Gardens. He had recently changed sponsors from one shoe company to anther, but he didn't have the new sponsor's uniform yet. Rather than wear the old sponsor's singlet, Ray competed in a faded Grateful Dead t-shirt. Halfway through the race, another walker stepped on Ray's heel and nearly took off his shoe. Ray stopped, pulled the shoe back on, jumped back in and won the race. It was amazing.

I think that was the last time I saw him until, thanks to the miracle of the internet, we reconnected a couple of summers ago. I drove out to Tucson to see Ray at his parent's house. Ray's Dad wasn't doing too well at the time. It turned out to be their final visit together.

Since then, we have kept in touch via email and Facebook. I found out that Ray was entered in the National 50k Racewalk Championship in Santee, California, which is not too far from Pacific Beach. I drove down to meet Ray the day before the race and we decided to cruise over to PB and check out the old stomping grounds. We had actually lived fairly near each other, though about a year apart. We'd both worked in local fast food places. Ray's 'Der Weinerschnitzel' is still in operation but my 'Jack In The Box' has gone out of business. We walked along the boardwalk. Traded stories of our times in PB. Poked around some of the shops. As I had discovered earlier, PB hasn't really changed that much. I guess Ray and I haven't changed too much either. Not too much.

At one point we asked some young dude to take our picture. We told him we'd lived there back in mythical times. He asked if PB was better back then. Ray said, "Everything was better back then."

I noticed Ray was coughing a bit and I thought we should get back to the hotel so he could rest up for his race. But he didn't seem too concerned. For the record, the 50k is a 31 mile race that can easily last for well over four hours. It's not something you want to attempt with a head cold, much less the flu.

When we got back to the hotel, Ray stretched out on his bed and I went looking for some dinner. Ray had said he wasn't hungry, which didn't seem like a good sign the night before a 31 mile race. But what do I know? I found a barbecue place nearby and had some barbecued ham and split-pea soup. I sat beneath the head of a giant bull moose that was mounted on the wall. What kind of sicko would want to kill a bull moose, the largest and most majestic creature in North America, and stick its head up on the wall?

Someone like Sarah Palin, probably.

When I got back to the room, Ray was reading a book about Nixon. He had gone to the 7-11 for some V-8 juice. Didn't seem like much to go on, calorie-wise. He was blowing his nose and coughing more than before and his throat sounded bad. But he fully intended to walk in the race the next morning.

Ray got up at about dawn and started getting ready for the race. It was freezing. I had snagged a space heater and some extra blankets from the hotel office the day before, but these old stucco buildings do not have much in the way of insulation. Ray took off for the race around six. I tried to get my blood flowing by taking a long hot shower. I was pretty glad I was not entered in any race that morning.

When I got to Santee, the race had been going on for about an hour. They run the 10k, 20k and 50k at the same time so the field was still fairly well populated. But pretty soon after I go there, all the 10k competitors started leaving the race, which cut out about two-thirds of the walkers.

I watched the race for about an hour. Ray was doing well, keeping in the lead of the 50k group alongside another walker who happens to be a three-time Olympian and ten years younger. I heard the meet announcer reading some of Ray's history over the P.A. system. There was the AAU Junior National win, the trips to the Soviet Union and East Germany, four World Cup appearances, records and national titles in every distance, including the grueling 100k, competing in the World Championship in Rome, setting the World Record in New York, qualifying for the first Goodwill Games in Moscow...

I'd had no inkling of all of Ray's accomplishments. Just to read them over the P.A. system took ten or fifteen minutes. But it wasn't so much the number of titles he held or records he'd set, it was the span. He'd been doing this since he was 18. And he's still going strong. He did have one setback, though. After the 1988 Olympic trials, where the 100 degree heat and 100 per cent humidity nearly killed him, Ray began suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome. He continued to compete for another few years, but eventually had to stop altogether. By now Ray was married and starting a family. It was time to settle down.

But Ray could not keep still. After almost ten years out of competition, he started feeling well enough to begin biking to work every day. That led to an interest in triathlons. As he felt his strength returning, he decided to get back into racewalking. Since then, he has competed in four National 50k Championships, two Pan Am Cup races and two World Cups. In Santee, Ray was hoping to qualify for another Pan Am Cup race.

Ray seemed to be holding steady, so I decided to run across the street and get a bagel. When I got back to the race course about ten minutes later, I saw that Ray had fallen behind. He wasn't looking too well either. And he still had about 15 miles to go.

But the thing about Ray is, he doesn't give up easily. For the next hour, I watched him fall farther and farther behind. His strides grew more and more unsteady. A couple of times he started wobbling around like he was about to fall flat on his face. But he wouldn't drop out. I wasn't sure what to do. He looked like he was killing himself. He was obviously sick as a dog, but he refused to stop walking. He'd gone nearly 20 miles and still had over ten to go.

I noticed the race officials conferring with the medic. They were wondering if they should pull him out. But then one of the judges gave him a "red card" for a violation of form. In racewalking you have to keep one foot on the ground at all times and keep your knee straight until it passes under your hip. Three violations and you're out. Actually, it was amazing that he had gotten this far. It was amazing that he was still conscious. Within the next few laps, Ray got two more red cards and they pulled him out of the race. If they hadn't, I don't know if he would have ever stopped.

After the race, Ray and I had some food and talked for a while. If he was disappointed, he didn't show it. And considering how sick he was, and the fact that he'd just walked twenty miles, he was in amazingly good spirits. Of course the next day he was sick in bed with a fever. And a few days later, so was I.

It was great seeing Ray again. I wish he'd done better in the race. But the fact that he didn't finish kind of says more about him than if he had done well. Racewalking isn't a glory sport. Ray never got a lot of attention or money or support for being a racewalker. It's a tough, lonely, thankless road that's only traveled by those who can keep going when there's no end in sight.

There will be other races. In fact, I got an email from Ray about a week after seeing him. He was competing in a 54k cross-country ski race in Michigan. And he was just barely getting over the flu. He's looking forward to the summer so he can start swimming, biking and running.

And next year there will be another 50k Championship. And Ray will be there.

Eyes Wide Open

2009-02-16T17:00:00.001-08:00

Viddy well, little brother. Viddy well.

On my first trip to California, I went with my family on the Universal Studios tour. We saw a lot of cool stuff, like the set from Rear Window, a mock battle between miniature battleships, the house from Psycho, and a huge pair of scissors from the TV show Land of the Giants. At one point on the tram ride around the backlot, our guide told us about a scene that was shot there in which hundreds of UCLA students dressed as Roman centurions charged up a hill and into the back yards of the unsuspecting citizens whose homes bordered the studio property.

The film was Spartacus and the director in command of those Californian legions was Stanley Kubrick.

I never did see Spartacus until many years later. It wasn't a typical Kubrick movie, but one he took over after producer and star Kirk Douglas fired the original director due to creative differences. Supposedly Douglas, who had worked with Kubrick on Paths of Glory, thought the newcomer Kubrick was young and inexperienced enough to push around and would give him the movie he wanted.

He couldn't have been more wrong.

Kubrick took charge like a general. There was only one way to do things: his way. When he and the film's cinematographer clashed over lighting issues, Kubrick basically ordered the man to sit on the sidelines while Kubrick took over the lighting and camerawork. The sidelined cinematographer eventually won an Oscar for what was essentially Kubrick's work.

Kirk Douglas summed his experience with Kubrick neatly, saying, "Kubrick is a talented shit."

The first Stanley Kubrick movie I ever heard of was playing at the Alpha 3 Cinema in our neighborhood. I was way too young to go see it, but I do remember the title on the marquee: DR. STRANGELOVE. I couldn't figure out what the hell it meant. I asked my Mom. She and my Dad had seen the movie. She tried to tell me who Dr. Strangelove was, but I'm not so sure she understood it all that well herself.

A few years later, another Kubrick movie came out called 2001: A Space Odyssey. I didn't know what the hell that meant either, but I knew it had spaceships in it. And spaceships were cool. I didn't see 2001: A Space Odyssey in its original release, either. My best friend's older brothers saw it one day and they said it was boring, but little kids like us might like it.

I did get to see a documentary called The Making of 2001. I was fascinated by the clever methods used to portray life in a zero-gravity environment, like the rotating set that allowed the actor to jog all the way around the inside of the spherical spaceship. I also loved the models of the spaceships and how the camera moved past the model, instead of the other way around, to give the illusion of gliding through space.

And then there was the enigmatic man behind all of this magic. Owl-eyed and bearded, he hovered over the camera with a gaze so intent it seemed the fate of the earth depended on getting the shot just right. That was my first glimpse of Stanley Kubrick.

Some years later I went to a midnight showing of 2001, which had been marketed in the late sixties as "The Ultimate Trip." The movie was quite popular at midnight shows where the theater was always dense with pot smoke. I loved the movie. It was flawless. I read the companion book written by Arthur C. Clarke and bought the soundtrack album. The Blue Danube Waltz became one of my favorite pieces of music.

I thought Stanley was a genius.

I don't think my Mom agreed with me. She and my Dad had gone to see Stanley's follow-up to 2001, also at the Alpha 3. It was called A Clockwork Orange and was notorious for its graphic scenes of sex and violence. My Mom walked out on it. Apparently my Dad stayed and saw the whole thing. I found it a little troubling at the time that Stanley would make a movie so disturbing as to cause my Mom to walk out. On the other hand, my Dad seemed to like it.

My parents aren't exactly cut from the same cloth.

My Mom wasn't alone, though. The film drew a lot of criticism for its use of violence. It was the first film to get blamed for inciting 'copy-cat' crimes, although in most cases the perpetrators of those crimes hadn't actually seen the movie. In England, where Kubrick lived, the film's reputation became so maligned that he ordered it to be pulled from distribution altogether and banned all future screenings.

It wasn't until A Clockwork Orange came around to our local revival house, The Vogue, that I finally saw what all of the fuss was about. Even after several years had gone by, some of the scenes of violence were pretty disturbing. Of course, that was the point. Violence should be disturbing. A culture that has become desensitized to violence needs to be shaken up a little every now and then.

I bet if you showed the movie now, however, it would seem tame compared to the never-ending parade of horror and mayhem that Hollywood churns out on a weekly basis.

I saw Dr. Strangelove when I was in college. And, though the movie was almost fifteen years old, it was as sharp and funny as the day it came out. I watched it just the other day and it still works beautifully.

By the way, how many people, on seeing outgoing Vice President Dick Cheney attending the inauguration in a wheelchair, made the eerie connection to the half-crazed, ex-Nazi weapons expert who seems perversely ecstatic about the possibility of nuclear annihilation?

Part of the beauty of Dr. Strangelove comes from the amazing triple performance by Peter Sellers. Kubrick worked with Sellers on a previous movie as well, an adaptation of Vladimir Nabokov's provocative novel, Lolita. Like A Clockwork Orange, the movie was steeped in controversy, telling the story of an affair between a middle-aged man and a fourteen-year-old girl. Yet, rather than focus on the prurient nature of the relationship, Kubrick made his film about the foibles and frustrations of the hapless Humbert Humbert whose desire for the young Lolita lures him down the dark path of his own destruction.

While I was busy catching up on Kubrick's past works, he was ensconced in his own English Manor, developing a reputation as an eccentric recluse and making the movie he hoped would be his 'masterpiece.'

I remember reading about Barry Lyndon in Time magazine. Kubrick was determined to film the story of an 18th century rogue, recreating as faithfully as possible the details of the period. That included shooting certain indoor scenes using only candlelight. In order to do so, new lenses had to be invented and thousands of beeswax candles manufactured. Barry Lyndon is so authentic, it is like a time machine that transports the audience to another era.

But the stately pace and lavish look failed to enthrall American audiences. I never saw Barry Lyndon on the big screen, though I would love to. I watched it on video on my parent's big-screen TV, marveling nevertheless at the beauty and perfection Kubrick had achieved.

Having passed up The Exorcist and hoping for a box-office hit, Kubrick now set his sights on Stephen King's The Shining. I was not a fan of Stephen King or the horror genre in general. I was a huge Jack Nicholson fan, but that was not enough to get me into the theater to see The Shining. Eventually I worked up the courage to rent the video.

Once again I watched it on my parents TV -- late at night, all alone, scared shitless.

As with Lolita, Kubrick did not religiously adhere to the text, using the book more as a jumping off point from which to craft his film. He shifted the focus of the story from the haunted hotel to the haunted character played by Nicholson. In doing so, he angered Stephen King, but in my opinion created a much more terrifying reality.

Full Metal Jacket, Kubrick's next film, tells the story of a squad of Marines that is sent to Vietnam in 1968. I missed seeing this one when it was in theaters, too. Which seems to be the pattern for me with Kubrick's films. Somehow I always end up seeing them after the fact. Watching Full Metal Jacket on video, I felt like I was seeing two different films. The first half, dealing with the young recruits in boot camp, was one of the most amazing things I'd ever seen. But the second half, which takes place during the Tet Offensive, did not work for me. I don't remember why. I guess I need to go back and watch it again.

The only Kubrick movie I actually did see during its original release was his last one, Eyes Wide Shut. I know a lot of people were disappointed by it, but I thought it was brilliant. I walked out of the theater thinking, "I've got to see that again." I never did, though -- at least not in the theater. I recently watched Eyes Wide Shut on DVD several times in a row, and each time I found something that I hadn't noticed before. There are so many things going on in that movie that I could watch it a hundred times and still enjoy it.

Seeing Eyes Wide Shut again, opened my eyes to the tremendous effect Kubrick's films have had on me. Because so much of the information in them is visual, it is easy to miss what is going on. But the images sink into your unconscious and inform you in ways you may not even understand.

As with most of his movies, Kubrick began with an existing story. But the story is only a seed of an idea. That seed then germinates in Kubrick's mind as he seeks to understand what the story is truly about, what it means, why it works or doesn't work. He draws on innumerable sources to feed his imagination: books, films, art, fiction, current events, psychology, science, politics, sociology...

Everything is filtered through the lens of the story and viewed from every possible angle.

This passionate technique of endless examination and curiosity is mirrored in his style of directing. Scenes may be shot over and over from different angles, always exploring, alway pushing to see what else might be lurking between the words, or hidden in the shadows.

The owl-eyed genius behind the camera shares his vision with us through the stories he has chosen to tell. Each story is different, but all share a common perspective. Stanley made movies, but they weren't just for entertainment. They were windows to the world the exists beneath the surface, behind the screen, beyond the horizon.

Stanley's movies taught me how to see.

BUllSHi*t

2009-01-16T19:05:00.000-08:00

If America does not lead the cause of freedom, that cause will not be led.

It's never too late to learn. And if you're going to learn, why not learn from a master? In the art of bullshit, there are few who have attained the level of mastery achieved by outgoing President George W. Bush. And last night's farewell address was a classic example.

First, let us examine exactly what it is that constitutes bullshit. According to an article I read in The New Yorker, the term "Bull" predates the term "bullshit" by several hundred years. Since the 17th century, "Bull" has been used to refer to "pretentious, deceitful [or] jejune language" and was unrelated to the word "bull" as it applies to farm animals. (Pretentious, you know, like using the word jejune.) It wasn't until modern times that the term was transmogrified into the epithet "bullshit." (See, I can do it, too.)

In a treatise published several years ago entitled On Bullshit, Harry G. Frankfurt, a professor emeritus from Princeton, comes to the conclusion that "bullshit" is distinct from lying in that a liar is specifically trying to lead someone away from the truth, whereas a bullshitter is not concerned with the truth at all. The bullshitter is concerned with achieving a certain goal -- whether he uses lies or truth to achieve it is not important to him. He chooses to say what he says because he thinks it will work, without regard for its adherence to, or deviation from the truth.

So what is President Bush's goal? Simply put, he wants to be right. One of the biggest decisions of his presidency was the choice to invade Iraq. Most Americans now think it was a bad decision -- that Bush was wrong.

But check out how Bush tells it:

"There is legitimate debate about many of these decisions. But there can be little debate about the results. America has gone more than seven years without another terrorist attack on our soil."

This is the core of his argument, that by taking "the fight to the terrorists and those who support them" he has kept us safe since 9/11. (Never mind the fact that he failed to keep us safe on 9/11.)

Is it true? Who knows? Many argue that the war in Iraq and U.S. mistreatment of so-called enemy combatants has given rise to a whole new generation of America-hating terrorists, making the world much less safe than before. Would there have been another 9/11-style attack on U.S. soil if we had stayed out of Iraq? Maybe. But maybe not. There's no way of knowing. And there's no way of proving or disproving Bush's assertion.

And that's what makes it classic bullshit.

Bush's use of a quote from Thomas Jefferson underscores his lack of concern for what is true: "I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past." Of course, when Jefferson said it, he was referring to an idea of democracy that broke away from previous notions of governance. Notions that Jefferson knew and understood quite well. For Bush, however, the concept becomes almost a mantra for ignoring the realities of the past and simply making up whatever suits his fancy.

A perfect example is Bush's assertion that we can force democracy upon those who do not have it. He states that the war in Iraq is "part of a broader struggle between two dramatically different systems...one, a small band of fanatics [that] demands total obedience to an oppressive ideology," and another "based on the conviction that freedom is the universal gift of Almighty God, and that liberty and justice light the path to peace." Furthermore, "advancing this belief is the only practical way to protect our citizens."

Is Bush aware that no nation in history has ever opted for democracy as a result of the external influence of a "liberating" invasion by a foreign power? That the only stable democracies in the world have come about as the result of an internal political evolution driven by the will of the people? Does he care? Of course not. That's past history and past history doesn't matter. What matters is that Bush was right to invade Iraq.

As further proof, Bush claims that, "when people live in freedom, they do not willingly choose leaders who pursue campaigns of terror." Yet when elections were held for the Palestinian Legislative Council in 2006, the terrorist organization Hamas won a majority of the seats. Again, when the facts do not fit the agenda, ignore them. If you happen find some facts that do fit the agenda, go ahead and toss 'em in there.

But what raises Bush's rhetoric from ordinary run-of-the-mill bullshit to truly masterful bullshit is the way he connects his agenda to something bigger even than liberty and freedom. Because it's not just about making the world free, it's about the eternal struggle between Good and Evil, "...and between the two of them there can be no compromise. Murdering the innocent to advance an ideology is wrong every time, everywhere. Freeing people from oppression and despair is eternally right."

Here we see one of the hallmarks of great bullshitting, grafting your argument onto another argument that is so fundamentally indisputable that yours becomes more legitimate by mere association. This technique was very effectively employed in the movie Animal House in the scene where Otter addresses the student council in defense of the Deltas:

"Ladies and gentlemen, I'll be brief. The issue here is not whether we broke a few rules, or took a few liberties with our female party guests -- we did.
But you can't hold a whole fraternity responsible for the behavior of a few, sick twisted individuals. For if you do, then shouldn't we blame the whole fraternity system? And if the whole fraternity system is guilty, then isn't this an indictment of our educational institutions in general? I put it to you, Greg - isn't this an indictment of our entire American society? Well, you can do whatever you want to us, but we're not going to sit here and listen to you badmouth the United States of America. Gentlemen!"

Oh and, by the way, so far 98,400 innocent Iraqi civilians have been murdered in the advancement of Bush's ideology.

In her book, Your Call Is Important to Us: The Truth About Bullshit, author Laura Penney describes Bush as a “a world-historical bullshitter.” She goes on to suggest that Bush actually believes his own bullshit. This, perhaps, is the special quality that makes him so brilliant at it. Because he has no relationship with the truth or historical fact, he is wide open to accept the bullshit that he himself promotes. And that makes him very, very dangerous.

I am reminded of what George Costanza told Jerry Seinfeld when Jerry was faced with the prospect of having to lie about watching Melrose Place while being subjected to a polygraph test.

George tells him: "It's not a lie, Jerry, if you believe it."

It's not a lie, it's bullshit.

Synecdoche, New York

2008-12-15T18:23:00.000-08:00

The play's the thing...

Charlie Kaufman has done it again. He wrote (and directed) a movie all about what it's like to live inside my head. The first time he did it was with the movie Adaptation, which tells the story of a screenwriter named "Charlie Kaufman" who is trying to adapt a book about orchids into a Hollywood movie. When I saw Adaptation, I felt like Charlie had been listening to my private thoughts and transcribing them onto the page. It was eerie how much the struggles of the character "Charlie Kaufman" mirrored my own. I wondered if anyone else would appreciate a movie that seemed to be directed at me personally.

I've written myself into my screenplay.

Now, Charlie (the actual person) has come out with another movie reflecting the inner workings of my not-so-spotless mind. It is called Synecdoche, New York and it is about a playwright and director named Caden, played by the brilliant Phillip Seymour Hoffman, who creates a play about his own life. But not just any play. The play that Caden creates is an actual, full-scale, real-time depiction of the everyday events of his own life. The play is staged in a massive warehouse which replicates in minute detail the streets, buildings, shops, houses and apartments of Caden's world. Naturally, this replica includes a replica of the warehouse which in turn also replicates Caden's world. And that replica contains another warehouse. And so on.

We're actors. We're the opposite of people.

Of course, the replicas are populated with actors who play the parts of the people in Caden's life, including his wife and daughter and himself. As the play goes on for years and years, these relationships change and grow, both outside and inside the play. Eventually it becomes quite confusing as to who is playing whom. The line between reality and theater becomes blurred to the point of non-existence. Eventually, Caden enters into the world of the play, taking up the part of a minor character. Though, as he puts it: "None of those people is an extra. They're all the leads of their own stories."

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

In the play Hamlet, the main character, Hamlet, decides to put on a play to ferret out the murderer of his father. Hamlet tells the actors that the purpose of the play is "to hold as 'twere the mirror up to nature." For a long time, this was the Holy Grail of not just theater, but art in general. Painting, sculpture, literature, photography, theater, cinema, etc., have all sought to reproduce as faithfully as possible the realities of our world and in so doing reveal life's truth. But reality isn't always the truth.

Truth is for suckers, Johnny Boy.

Plenty of artists have taken a very different route from the 'mirror up to nature' one. Picasso wasn't exactly going for photorealism in Guernica. Waiting for Godot doesn't even attempt to portray the world as we know it. Slaughterhouse Five bounces around from one time period to another and even transports two of its characters to a distant planet. But each of these works manages to convey some essential truths.

Let us not waste our time in idle discourse!

Perhaps the 'mirror' is the key. I have a mirror in my bathroom that is normal on one side and magnified on the other. When you hold the magnified mirror up to nature, are you seeing more of the truth or less of it? And what about those mirrors in your car that say 'objects may be closer than they appear'? Sometimes the mirror is lying.

Half of what he said meant something else, and the other half didn't mean anything at all.

In one of my favorite plays, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, two minor characters from Hamlet become the leads in a kind of mirror image version of the original play. Instead of focusing on Hamlet and all his tribulations, this play focuses on the two college buddies who have been invited to Elsinore to cheer Hamlet up after his father's death. Although, once they arrive, they realize they have really been called in to spy on Hamlet to find out why he's acting so crazy. Right from the start, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern begin to notice that the world has stopped making sense. The laws of physics and probability have gone out the window. Logic and reason fail them. They don't know where they are, why they are there, or even which one of them is which. The only person who seems to know what's going on is a character known as The Player, who has been brought in by Hamlet to stage the play-within-the-play that will help Hamlet catch his father's killer. The Player alone seems to realize that they are all caught up in something beyond their understanding, headed for a final act which always ends the same way.

Audiences know what they expect, and that is all they are prepared to believe in.

Synecdoche, New York reflects a world where reality becomes theater and theater becomes reality. A playwright mounts a production dramatizing every moment of his life, spanning nearly two decades, consisting of dozens of sets and hundreds of actors and including a play within a play within a play within a play, and on and on, like a never-ending house of mirrors. And in the end, the main character becomes a bit player and the bit player becomes the lead. Because we are all leads in our own stories. Just like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players...

So, therefore, I am living in Synecdoche, New York. As are we all. We are all mounting productions of our lives and playing our parts on the world stage. And each of these productions is like a mirror that reflects what we think is the truth. Whether we are from Synecdoche or Ilium or Grover's Corner's or Mayberry.

The Color Purple

2008-11-15T14:13:00.000-08:00

"I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it."

For most of my life, politics has essentially been a spectator sport. And like most other spectator sports, I only become interested in it when the stakes are high, like the World Series, the Super Bowl, or the Olympics. I am currently going through a phase of fairly intense interest in politics, although I still treat it as a spectator sport. I watch it on TV, read about it on the internet, talk about it with my friends. Although last week, on election day, I did get a chance to participate. And I was surprised at how fun and exciting it was.

I first became interested in politics during the 1972 presidential race. Most of my eighth-grade classmates were for Nixon, and therefore, so was I. Not that I actually knew anything about Nixon or what he stood for. I just wanted to be like everyone else. I had one friend, however, who was a staunch McGovern supporter. His name was Cliff and his dad was the minister at our church. As far as my classmates were concerned, McGovern was a Communist. And that was the worst thing that anyone could be. But one day, Cliff sat me down told me about McGovern and the things he stood for. And it turned out that I agreed with McGovern. And then Cliff told me about Nixon and the things he stood for. And I totally disagreed with Nixon.

Cliff took me downtown to McGovern campaign headquarters to learn more. I read their literature and immediately got on board. Soon, I was handing out buttons, silk-screening posters, and putting up flyers like a true believer. I got caught up in the excitement of the campaign and as November drew nearer I had high hopes for our candidate. I remember very clearly that it was raining that election day and Cliff and I thought that maybe the rain would deter some of the more complacent Nixon voters.

It didn't.

In high school, my political activities were focused on environmental issues. As a Boy Scout, I had gained a deep love and respect for nature and felt compelled to do my part to protect the earth from the ravages of pollution and overdevelopment. I joined the Ecology Club at school and signed up to take part in a protest march to help save the Red River Gorge.

The Red River Gorge is a beautiful and unspoiled area in the foothills of the Appalachians where the winding Red River has carved its way through layers of sandstone to create a spectacular series of canyons, arches, cliffs and waterfalls. It was one of my favorite places to go camping and hiking. But the Gorge was being threatened by a proposed dam, and the Sierra Club and various other radical tree-hugging organizations were fighting the Corps of Engineers to try and preserve the Gorge's unique ecosystem.

It was my first protest march and it was a doozy. We loaded into a bus for the trip to Frankfort, singing songs and swapping stories on the way down. I got to know some of the other Eco club members, mostly hippie types and other outcasts. The march was huge. It proceeded down a main thoroughfare in front of the state capitol, where we stopped to chant slogans and hear speeches and generally do protesty things. It was loads of fun. And it worked. The plans for the dam were shelved for further study. In 1993, the Gorge was declared a federally protected area, preventing any further threat.

The summer after my junior year, I got an inside look at politics when I attended Bluegrass Boys State. Boys State is a program sponsored by the American Legion that provides kids the opportunity to learn about state government by setting up and operating a mock government, all in the space of one week. We had a mock legislature, where I learned about parliamentary procedure, Robert's Rules of Order and bureaucratic paralysis. We had a mock election, where I learned about cronyism and deal-making. And we had a mock trial, where I learned how much I enjoyed showing off.

The mock legislature was revealing for two reasons: first, those who knew the rules were able to get a lot done, and second, very few people knew the rules. During the mock campaign, my friend Gary allied himself with one of the more popular guys and when his candidate was elected mock Governor, Gary got appointed mock Attorney General. And when Gary got appointed mock Attorney General, I got appointed mock Deputy Attorney General. That meant that at the mock trial, kind of a finale to the week's events designed to teach about the legal system in action, I got to get up on stage and prosecute the case for the state.

And I was awesome.

With our appetites for politics sufficiently whetted, Gary and I decided to run for class officer our senior year. Actually, Gary decided to run for Class President and convinced me to run for Sergeant at Arms. I had no idea what a Sergeant at Arms was, but I figured no one else would either. Unfortunately Gary was defeated. I, however, was elected to office and proceeded to serve with dignity and valor. My main function was to produce the senior class play (we did "Oklahoma") which turned out to be one of the hardest things I ever did. Also the most enjoyable.

In college, my radical side resurfaced and I joined a group of hardcore leftists to protest the building of a gymnasium on the sight of the student killings at Kent State University. But, whereas the trip to Frankfort with the Eco Club was all camaraderie and folk songs, the long bus ride from Wesleyan to Kent State was more about conspiracies and paranoia.

When we arrived at Kent State, the mood was ominous. Heavy clouds darkened the sky and tensions were high. The rumor was that the long rally and march was to end at the site of the proposed gymnasium where we would storm the chain link fence and occupy the sacred terrain. Supposedly, the FBI was there to keep an eye on us, as the gymnasium site was protected by Federal Order. These were not the glassy eyed-hippies of the environmental movement, but rather the wild-eyed remnants of the anti-war crusade.

At the rally, we heard from several speakers, but the one who really stood out was Mark Rudd, founding member of the SDS and basis for the Doonesbury character Megaphone Mark. Rudd had been underground for years due to his association with the Weathermen, but he still spoke with the raspy conviction of those turbulent times. He got us all riled up, chanting the slogan, "Long Live the Spirit of Kent and Jackson State!" It was one of the more eye-opening aspects of this trip to learn that ten days after the killing of four white students at Kent State, two black students were killed in a similar protest at Jackson State College in Mississippi. For all the news and uproar surrounding the Kent State killings, I had never heard a peep about Jackson State.

The Neil Young song "Ohio" was played over the PA system as the rally evolved into a march. As rumored, we wound our way through campus and ended up at the gymnasium construction site. There were thousands of people gathered there, chanting slogans, fists raised. Rudd and the other leaders wore bandannas over their faces. I noticed several men on nearby rooftops pointing telephoto lenses in our direction. The word was passed around, "you don't have to cross the fence line if you don't want to." But when the fence came down, we poured in by the hundreds. There were police standing by, but they didn't move to stop us. We massed in the center of the site, where bulldozers and dump trucks were already waiting to erase the past. We heard more rhetoric, chanted more slogans, and eventually, peacefully, left the area.

That trip was quite a dose of radicalism and it left me stirred for more action. A few months later, I found myself back with the leftists, occupying the office of the president of the university. We were there to protest university investments in South Africa. Most of the other students I knew didn't really care too much about the issue, they were more concerned with grades. But the issue seemed important to me, especially when I learned that many students didn't believe that we had the right to protest at all. Of course we have the right to protest!

Unfortunately our protest didn't get much attention. Repeated attempts to attract the interest of local TV stations were answered with the disheartening comment, "call us if someone gets hurt." The sit-in devolved into a series of frustrating meetings reminiscent of the paralytic bureaucracy and stifling parlimentarianism of Boys State. We did, however manage to encourage the university to review its South African investments and begin the long slow process of divestment. As it turns out, one of the students who was with me in the president's office during the sit-in is now there on a daily basis as the current president of Wesleyan.

By senior year of college, my political activism had just about run its course. I voted in my first election only to see Jimmy Carter get clobbered by Ronald Reagan almost as bad as Nixon beat McGovern. I wasn't buying in to the Reagan mythology. His whole idea of "what's good for business is what's good for America" has been around literally since the pyramids. And it always ends up the same, the rich get richer and the poor get screwed. As a college graduate, I bounced from one meaningless job to another waiting for the crumbs to start trickling down my way. Meanwhile, stockbrokers and lawyers were getting fat and happy.

I finally took the advice of a friend and went straight to the source, taking a job in a law firm in Washington D.C. There were crumbs aplenty for sellouts like me in Reagan's America, but I couldn't help noticing the throngs of homeless people camped out across from the White House in Lafayette Park, victims of the Reagan budget cuts. No crumbs for them.

Living in D.C. during the Reagan-Bush years completely soured me on politics. It was all sound bites and voodoo. Eventually I stopped participating altogether.

I did get a little jolt when Bill Clinton was elected, although as an unregistered malcontent, I hadn't actually voted for him. But Bill managed to tarnish his image (as well as a certain blue dress) and once again I felt that politicians were a bunch of weasels. That feeling was exacerbated when the King of All Weasels, George W. Bush, was elected. Well, the first time he wasn't so much elected as appointed by the Supreme Court. But to see the same clown get elected again was really discouraging. Didn't like him in 2000, didn't like him in 2004, don't like him now.

But this new guy I really like. I'm even reading his book. He's smart as hell. And he's cool. Will he live up to expectations? That may be impossible. But I'll say one thing for him, he's got my interest. And after all this time, that's no small achievement.

Mile Swim

2008-10-15T21:36:00.001-07:00

It's hard not to be distracted these days by all of the hype and hoopla surrounding the election. It's a historic event. It's an important decision. And it's interesting as hell. But, meanwhile, life goes on.

One of the best ways I have found to clear my head of external distractions is to go swimming. Spending forty-five minutes with my face submerged in water is a great way to block out the world. My main focus when swimming is on my breathing. That and counting. It's pretty basic. When you pare down your conscious processes to just breathing and counting, you are pretty close to a state of pure being. Plus it's great exercise.

I have always loved the water. When I was a kid my family lived in a neighborhood with a swimming pool just down the road. We could easily walk there and on summer days we practically lived there. Back then, swimming consisted mainly of 'horseplay'. Jumping, diving, splashing, inventing games, anything to spend more time in the water. But the real fun was jumping off the diving board. And in order to do that I had to pass a test. One of the first real tests of my childhood: to swim the length of the pool.

Swimming The Length was a major rite of passage in my neighborhood. I still remember the day I did it. It was during one of the fifteen minute breaks each hour when the adults were permitted to swim and the kids had to cool their jets. It was a major event, because during 'break' all the other kids were sidelined with nothing else to do but watch you.

Gordy, the redheaded lifeguard, walked slowly along the edge of the pool as I made my way out of familiar shallow territory and into the exciting and dangerous realm of the Deep End. My Mom walked just behind Gordy, offering words of encouragement and a confident smile. I can still see the tiled wall at the far end drawing slowly closer. Below me, nine feet of water. There was no turning back. I was determined not to fail. Finally, I made it. I had swum The Length. Friends and neighbors applauded. Gordy congratulated me. Mom hugged me with a warm towel.

The next summer, I was persuaded to try out for our neighborhood swim team. I'll never forget that day either. My older sister Cindy was on the team. She was a great swimmer. My Dad had been on the swim team at Wesleyan. I felt like I had a legacy to uphold. Only I didn't want to be on the swim team. I liked swimming for fun, not for competition. I was a pretty scrawny kid and lacked the upper body strength for real swimming. I just liked goofing around in the water.

The first day of practice we swam a twenty lap warm up. It was a huge struggle for me. I barely finished. I felt like I was going to puke. I tried to get excused from the rest of the practise, but was pressured to continue. Things got a little better when we started racing. I was actually pretty fast in the short sprints. I even did O.K. in a couple of meets. But I never forgot the shame of that first practice. I just wasn't cut out to be on the swim team.

I never stopped loving the water, though. I spent as much time in the pool as possible during the summer. And on our family trips to Florida, I enjoyed swimming in the ocean just as much. At summer camp as a Boy Scout I even learned some lifesaving techniques. But there was one thing I was always afraid to try, even though I secretly wanted to. And that was the Mile Swim.

The Mile Swim is a merit badge awarded by the Boy Scouts, or "Scouts" as they now like to be called, for (you guessed it) swimming a mile. There are a few other requirements as well, but it's pretty much the swimming the mile part that gets you the badge. I remember passing by the pool at Camp Covered Bridge one day when they were holding the qualifying swim for the Mile Swim merit badge. I stood and watched as about a dozen boys swam lap after lap, still haunted my own humiliating performance at that first swim team warm up. I thought about how cool it would be to earn that merit badge with the little red seahorse on it. That would be some real vindication.

I never did try to swim the mile, though. It seemed impossible. A mile! Who could swim that far? I couldn't even swim twenty laps.

But all that was a long time ago and it's all water under the bridge, so to speak.

Several years ago, after injuring my Achilles tendon, I started swimming laps at a local pool as an alternative to running. I started off easy, swimming for about twenty minutes at a stretch, which was enough to leave me dizzy and gasping for breath. Over time I have gradually increased my workouts to the point where, earlier this summer, I was doing 1500 yards three times a week. It occurred to me that I was only 260 yards shy of the coveted Mile Swim. So, I decided to go for it.

It being summer, I was swimming on the early morning schedule Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. So one Sunday morning, I got up at seven a.m. to arrive at the pool by seven-thirty. The pool was nearly deserted, which is just the way I like it. I swam my usual 1500 yard workout and was feeling pretty good. I decide to keep going. Technically, I needed four more laps, plus another sixty yards, so call it six. Surprisingly, the additional six laps went by pretty quickly. It was over before I knew it. I had done it. I had completed the Mile Swim. This time there was no applause. No congratulations from Gordy the lifeguard. No warm hug from Mom. But there was a deep feeling of satisfaction. One of those little shadows from the past that had been lurking about for all these years had been turned into a halo. It felt good.

I decide to reward myself for my achievement, so I went on eBay and bought a vintage 1970's BSA Mile Swim merit badge. The one with the little red seahorse on it. The one I've always wanted.

Now that I have conquered the mile, what next? For a while I rested on my laurels, thinking a mile was plenty long enough for a workout. But after a couple of weeks, I decided to bump it up a little more. Now I'm up to two thousand yards. I still make a mental note when I pass the mile mark. It is no longer the unattainable goal of my childhood, rather simply another 'milestone' along my path. But it will always be a special one. It took me a long time to get there. And each time I pass it by, I will remember the journey.

Echoes of the Mekong

2008-09-15T14:27:00.000-07:00

There's been a lot of talk about heroes lately. I recently lost one of mine. He wasn't famous or anything. But he was someone I really admired. He was a writer and a historian and a Captain in the U.S. Navy. His name was Peter Huchthausen.

I first met Peter during a visit to my parent's house on Frye Island in Maine. Peter had a house there too. He had just written a book called Echoes of the Mekong. My parents had read it and they both loved it. They sent me a copy because they thought it would make a great movie. I was living in New York at the time and had recently begun to concentrate on writing screenplays. I read the book and I loved it too. I decided to meet Peter and ask him if I could adapt it into a screenplay.

I'll never forget our first encounter. Peter arrived in a small motorboat, which he moored at a small dock at the end of the road near my parent's house. He wore a black fishing cap and a windbreaker and had the ruddy face of a seafaring man. I greeted him and we walked up the road to my parent's house. By the time we got to the driveway we had already reached an agreement about the screenplay. We shook hands and that was that. In all the years I knew him we never needed a more formal agreement than that handshake. I knew right away that this was a man I could always rely on.

I went back to New York and banged out a first draft of the script. It was an amazing story of courage and hope in the face of the horrors of war. Peter had served as captain of a river patrol boat on the Mekong River during the Vietnam War. One afternoon, he and his crew rescued a badly wounded young girl named Lung. She had lost her leg in a 'friendly fire' incident -- meaning she'd been shot by an American gunship. Peter brought her back to his base where he and some of the other sailors arranged for her treatment and rehabilitation. When she was well enough, they sent her to school. During the Tet offensive, however, the school was bombed and Lung was forced to flee for safety. Peter tried to find her, but she was lost in a sea of refugees. Peter left Vietnam without knowing her fate.

Lung's life after the war was filled with hardship and danger. Due to her association with the Americans, she was considered a traitor by the Communists who were in power. She had to live as a fugitive to avoid being sent to a concentration camp for "re-education." She fell in love with another fugitive and became pregnant, but he disappeared before their daughter was born. Lung vowed that her daughter would have a better life and hoped for a way to make it possible. One of the few possessions she had kept with her since childhood was a photograph of her and Peter. She managed to get a copy of the photo into the hands of an American journalist, who got it published in Stars and Stripes, the armed forces newspaper. When Peter saw the picture and accompanying story, he was overjoyed. He contacted the journalist and the two of them arranged for Lung and her daughter to come to the United States.

I wanted the screenplay to remain as true to the book as possible, because I felt that the plain facts carried tremendous impact. There were numerous instances where both Peter and Lung showed great strength and faith and I wanted to honor their story. I had never done an adaptation before, and certainly not one where the story was true and the author was someone I knew. I sent Peter the script and made arrangements to meet with him back up on Frye Island.

When I met with Peter for our first 'script conference' I was prepared to be told that I had gotten everything wrong and completely screwed up the story. What did I know about being in the middle of a firefight in the Mekong River? Or having my leg shot off? Or watching a comrade die right before my eyes? Or fleeing from my town as artillery shells exploded all around me?

To my surprise, Peter was very pleased with the script and had very few criticisms. I remember one in particular, when I had referred to the sound of the "waves" lapping against the side of Peter's river patrol boat. He corrected me, "there aren't waves in a river, there's current." He made a couple other such corrections, mostly technical things, then he started showing me some of the photographs from his time in Vietnam. Including the one of him and Lung that served as Lung's passport to freedom.

Many of the photos were of Peter and his buddies, some of the naval base and some were just pictures of the extremely beautiful country where so many terrible things had taken place. Every once in a while, Peter would look at a picture and point to one of the people in it. His voice would grow hoarse and his eyes glassy as he told me how and where that particular man had given his life. As I watched him describe the battles he had fought, I realized that a part of him will never return from that place. And even though he survived the war, he lost something very precious that people like me tend to take for granted. He lost a part of his soul.

Maybe that was why it was so important for him to try and help at least one young girl get through the war without being destroyed by it.

Peter left Vietnam after questioning the ethics of a covert operation his crew was involved in. Captured North Vietnamese soldiers were being rearmed and sent back into the field as paid assassins in the service of the CIA. They received a certain amount of money for each human ear they turned in, indicating the number of 'kills' they'd scored. The trouble was, you couldn't really tell one ear from another, and sometimes the assassins would just kill whoever they found, including civilians and South Vietnamese soldiers. When Peter reported this information to his superiors, he was told to 'walk away' -- the project was an overall success, so don't rock the boat. Soon after that, he was transferred.

For a time, Peter served on an aircraft carrier patrolling the South China Sea. Periodically, the ship would encounter boats filled with refugees trying to escape the war. One of Peter's duties was to investigate the boats and offer them what little assistance he was allowed. He scanned the faces of the refugees, wondering if he would ever find Lung among them. He never stopped thinking about her, despite the gulf of time and distance between them. In just a few months, they had forged a bond that crossed the boundaries of age and language and culture. They had made a real human connection in a time and place where humanity was in very short supply. That connection also kept Lung going during her years as a fugitive.

When they were reunited, one of the first places they went was the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington D.C. Lung wanted to say thank you to the people who had given their lives for her freedom.

I met Lung and her beautiful daughter Trang at Peter's house on Frye Island. Knowing what she had been through to get there, it was almost unbelievable to see her in person. When I saw Trang, who was born on the dirt floor of a thatched hut while mortar shells exploded a few hundred yards away, it was like witnessing a miracle. The two of them looked at Peter with adoration. He was their saviour. But in a way, they were his saviours, too. Because despite all of the brutality and violence and terror he had witnessed, knowing that he was able to help give Lung and Trang a better life gave Peter something truly meaningful to hang in the balance.

When he said goodbye to his men before leaving Vietnam, Peter told them, "Don't lose sight of your humanity, because that's the only thing that's going to get you through this." I think that's what makes Peter a hero to me. It's not just bravery in the face of fear that counts, but also bravery in the face of doubt. Sometimes we are asked to put aside our basic values in order to serve a 'greater good'. We are told that the end justifies the means. That our enemies do not deserve our understanding or compassion, or humanity. It is at those times, more than ever, that we need to hold on to our values. Because it is at those times that our values will serve us best.

That is what a hero should do. That's what Peter did. And I miss him.

The Alley

2008-08-14T19:54:00.000-07:00

It's so easy to slip ,
It's so easy to fall ,
And let your memory drift ,
And do nothin' at all .
All the love that you missed ,
All the people that you can't recall ,
Do they really exist at all ?

I got a call the other day from my good friend Jim Beus. Some of you may recall that Jim was the lead singer of The Buzzards. I say 'was' because for all intents and purposes, The Buzzards are no longer a going concern. Or should that be 'The Buzzards is no longer...'? I always get that mixed up. Anyway, about a year ago I found out that Jim had re-formed The Buzzards with a new lineup which didn't include me. He was under the impression that I had left the band. I was under the impression that the band was taking a break. But, Jim wanted me to play a solo opening set at the new band's first gig. And that actually sounded like a pretty cool idea to me, so I agreed.

And that's how I left the band.

The "new" Buzzards didn't really have much momentum, though, and currently the whole project has been tabled. Or as I like to put it, The Buzzards have transcended into legendary status.

But that's not why Jim called me. See, Jim's new job is in commercial real estate, which means he spends most days driving around looking at empty lots, eating fast food, and talking on his iPhone. He was calling (on said iPhone) to tell me about a rumor he'd heard that The Buzzards old rehearsal studio, The Alley, is being sold. This came as somewhat disturbing news, because The Alley is more than just a rehearsal space, it's an important part of music history.

My introduction to The Alley came by way of another important part of music history, founding member of The Buzzards and celebrated guitar-wizard Will Ray. When we first started putting the band together, we were meeting at one of those run-of-the-mill warehouse-style rehearsal studios in North Hollywood where the hyperactive squawking of the mariachi band on one side and the sickening drone of the death metal band on the other would bleed through the cheap drywall to form a horrifying melange I liked to call "Satan's Pinata Party." Will decided we needed a more harmonious atmosphere in which to craft our sound. So he decided to book us a session at The Alley.

From the moment we first wheeled our equipment into the studio, we knew we had found a home. The place was like a time capsule from the 70's, with overstuffed couches, a driftwood coffee table, hanging plants, patchwork-quilt sound buffers and rough-hewn beams. We had booked the smaller of two studios which is known as 'The Basement' even though it is on the ground floor. Two of the walls of The Basement are covered with graffiti. But not just random graffiti, the names of nearly every band who has ever played there are written on the dull yellow brick walls. Bands you've heard of, bands no one has ever heard of, famous bands, legendary bands, long forgotten bands -- thousands of bands.

The list of artists who have played at the Alley is far too long for anyone to ever remember, but it includes people like Jackson Brown, Bonnie Raitt, Linda Ronstadt, Dwight Yoakum, Ozzy Ozbourne, The Smashing Pumpkins, Red Hot Chili Peppers and my personal least favorite, System of a Down. One of Dwight's gold records hangs on the wall by the mixing board in The Basement. I often used to gaze at it when we were playing. Kind of my own version of Jay Gatsby's green light.

Playing in that environment gave us the sense that we were part of a great musical tradition. Surrounded by it. Inspired by it. We did some fine jamming in that room. Probably some of our best performances ever. Hell, we even managed to impress the Red Hot Chili Peppers one night. And of course when I say "we", I mean "Will Ray."

The Chili Peppers used to play across the hall in the larger of the two studios, which known as 'The Loft' because it has a loft at one end where groupies and other special guests can hang out during rehearsal. Once, when we were poking around the studio, our drummer Tom and I climbed up into the loft to get a first-hand look. Nothing amazing, just a few couches, coffee tables and plenty of ash trays. Tom took a look around and quipped, "imagine the DNA in this place."

Tom and I were in the habit of arriving early to rehearsal and having a quick bite to eat at the picnic table just outside the entrance. The Alley is literally located in an alley off Lankershim Blvd. It shares a parking lot with a burrito place that blocks the view of the entrance from the street. To the uninitiated, it can be quite a challenge to find the place.

One evening, as I was munching my free-range turkey sandwich, I noticed some particularly amazing sounds coming from inside The Loft. Really funky bass and drums. Tom soon joined me and also remarked on the quality of the music. Whoever they were, they were damn good. Just a few minutes later, the music stopped and three guys came out of the studio. The first guy was instantly recognizable due to his short-cropped haircut and bare chest covered in tattoos. It was Flea, the Chili Peppers inimitable bassist. He sat down across from me and started digging into a huge organic salad from Whole Foods. He was joined by drummer Chad Smith and guitarist John Fruscianti. We chatted for a while about band stuff like guitars and amps. Then Fruscianti asked us if we were the same band who was there the week before.

We nodded.

"You guys were really sounding good, especially that guy on pedal steel."

I grinned. "That's Will," I explained, "only he doesn't play pedal steel, it's slide guitar."

Fruscianti looked doubtful. "No, I'm pretty sure I heard a pedal steel."

"It's the way he plays -- he wears a slide on his right hand as well as his left to get that sound. It's his own invention. He calls it a 'stealth slide.'"

At this point Fruscianti was looking at me like I was full of shit. But then Flea looked up from his salad and chimed in, "it sounded good."

Anthony Kiedis, also shirtless, stepped out of the studio and looked around. He remained in the doorway for a few minutes, looking like he desperately needed attention, but trying hard not to show it.

Tom and I finished up our dinners and started hauling our equipment into The Basement. I told Fruscianti to come by and check out Will's setup, but he never did. We saw them a few more times at the picnic table. It felt pretty cool to be treated as peers by a band as cool as the Chili Peppers. Except for Kiedis, that is. He never said a word to us and avoided eye contact as much as possible. But Flea was always there, shirt off, wolfing down his organic salad. At The Alley we were all the same, just a bunch of musicians hanging around the picnic table.

After Will left L.A. for greener pastures, I took over the task of booking rehearsals and began learning more about the history and charm of The Alley. This was mainly due to the fact that I was dealing with Shiloh, who along with her husband Bill, owns and runs The Alley. Climbing the spiral staircase to Shiloh and Bill's apartment above the studio became a ritual for me at the end of each rehearsal. While the rest of the band loaded their equipment, I stood in the enclosed front porch that served as the business office and looked at the literally hundreds of photos, posters, framed articles, artifacts and memorabilia that cluttered the room. Here a poster from a Don Henley show, there a picture of Linda Ronstadt, underneath it, a teetering pile of old Rolling Stone magazines next to a dusty old guitar case. Shiloh would drag out the big appointment book and page through to the next week to book our next rehearsal. Then she'd hand me a handwritten receipt for the current week. I never saw a computer or even an adding machine.

I would sometimes question Shiloh about various bands that had been at The Alley at one time or another. After my trip to Joshua Tree, I was warming up in the studio with a Gram Parsons song and Shiloh started talking about when Gram was still around. She said they still had one of his old pianos in storage. When they filmed the movie Grand Theft Parsons, Bill let them use one of his many vintage bikes, a three-wheeler, for Johnny Knoxville to ride. Shiloh tended to get a little wistful when talking about Gram. I think he had that effect on people. Especially women.

The band I wanted to know the most about, though, was Little Feat. One evening, we were supposed to be booked into The Basement, but due to a mix-up we ended up in The Loft. It was the first time we'd played in there, and it felt like going from the minors to the majors. On the wall behind the low stage was a giant banner depicting a woman with a tomato for a head lounging in a hammock. I recognized it right off as the banner that had hung behind Little Feat during their Waiting For Columbus tour. I had seen them on that tour, playing at the Wesleyan hockey rink, and have never seen a hotter live band. Unfortunately, lead singer and songwriter Lowell George only lived a few more years after that. He was one of the true greats of all time.

Little Feat continues perform and record, but without Lowell it's just not the same band. I saw the reconstituted version of the band once in New York, and even though they were very good, there was still something missing. They had added three guys to take Lowell's place -- one to write, one to sing and one to play guitar -- but it still didn't come close.

Shiloh told me the band wants her to give them back the banner, but she won't do it. These days it covers the ceiling above the stage in The Loft. When I heard that The Alley was for sale, I decided I really needed to get back there at least one more time to see that banner, and to read the names of some of the bands on the brick wall, and to ask Shiloh more questions about Gram Parsons and Lowell George.

I called her up to find out if the rumor was true -- was The Alley really being sold? She said that it wasn't "being sold" but it is "for sale." She and Bill are in no hurry to let go of it. What they really want to do is find someone who will take it over and keep running it just like it always has been. I hope they do. It would be a shame to see such an amazing chunk of history disappear.

On the other hand, I once had a friend who said that music wasn't meant to be preserved, it was meant to be played and enjoyed and released into the wild. Music is a live event that exists in the moment. Instead of bottling it up and listening to it over and over again, we should be playing some new music. Even an old song played again can be new. Why keep living in the past?

I guess I agree with some of that notion. But I sure think we'd be missing out on something great without those original 29 Robert Johnson recordings. Or Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald. Or Vladimir Horowitz. Or Coltrane. Woody Guthrie. Ray Charles!

So I think it's good to try and hang onto a little bit of history. And it's cool to think that in my own insignificant way, I am part of that history. And if I had a couple million dollars, I just might buy The Alley for myself.

Class Clown

2008-07-16T18:03:00.000-07:00

"Shitpissfuckcuntcocksuckermotherfuckertits!"

When I was a kid I loved to listen to comedy albums. These days I get most of my comedy from cable TV. But back in olden times I spent hours memorizing comedy routines on vinyl LPs. My favorite comedy albums were by Bill Cosby and Flip Wilson. Does anybody remember Flip Wilson? "The Devil made me do it!" Sometime around junior high I heard some albums by Cheech and Chong and Firesign Theater. Those were pretty cool. But the coolest comedy album I ever heard was definitely "Class Clown" by George Carlin.

Probably the first time I saw George Carlin was when he did his 'Hippy-Dippy Weatherman' routine on the Tonight Show. That was back when Johnny Carson was the host, by the way. George was probably the first counterculture comic to really break through to the big time. And TV friendly bits like 'Hippy-Dippy Weatherman' made him a Carson regular. "The forecast for this evening: dark!" But those late night TV appearances did not prepare me for the education I would receive when I first heard one of George's albums.

Of course the main reason that Class Clown was so cool was because it featured the infamous "Seven Words You Can Never Say On Television." Hearing George recite that list of taboo words was one of the most mindblowingly hilarious events of my adolescence. I had never even heard some of those words before. They were dirty. And George just blurted them out right in front of God and everybody. I'll never forget them...

"Shitpissfuckcuntcocksuckermotherfuckertits!"

Of course George wasn't saying them just to shock us or to blow our minds. He had a point. "They're just words, man." He was trying to reveal the hypocrisy of a society that seemed to be more concerned about what a person says than what they do. Go ahead and bomb Cambodia, lie to America, cheat, steal, kill and plunder to your hearts content. But Goddammit, watch what you say!

George had a way of making you laugh and think at the same time, which is kind of like walking and chewing gum for some people. He made comedy hip and smart, but also childish and goofy. He looked like a hippie, talked like a college professor and acted like a fool.

George's coolness factor skyrocketed, however, one seemingly normal day when I went over to my friend's house to listen to Class Clown for the hundredth time. When my friend pulled the album from its protective sleeve we noticed that the last cut on the second side had been totally scratched out with what must have been a ten penny nail. I mean these were some deep gouges. The scratches had been made by his mom in a fit of righteous indignation and long-suppressed hostility. Apparently she disapproved of the Seven Words.

My friend's mom was way too late, however, the damage had already been done. You can't unhear something. And we had more than heard that routine. We had committed it to memory. In fact, rather than erasing the evil words from our minds, she had made them indelible. And she elevated George to the status of a martyr. He was our hero. He was Saint George The Fool.

"Shitpissfuckcuntcocksuckermotherfuckertits!"

A couple of years later, George became even more hip when he appeared as the host of the premier of a new TV show called "NBC's Saturday Night." Although the show as being broadcast live, George did not take the opportunity to unleash the "Seven Words" upon the unsuspecting American airways. In fact, he didn't really do anything outrageous or mindblowing that night. It was just a treat to see him there on my TV set, live from New York, hosting the coolest show ever.

I did get to see George live and in person when he came to Louisville one year. The show was great. It was the first time I'd ever seen a comic onstage. Watching him work was amazing. He seemed so relaxed and comfortable, ambling around the stage using the microphone like a musical instrument. He performed for over an hour and did all the classic bits I knew from his records. Including the "Seven Words."

"Shitpissfuckcuntcocksuckermotherfuckertits!"

I didn't hear much from George in the Eighties. Steve Martin took over as the perennial host of SNL and became the new king of comedy. George moved over to HBO where he didn't have to worry so much about censorship. I never had cable TV in those days so I missed most of George's specials.

Late one night, sometime around the end of the Eighties, my friend Beck Lee and I were passing a bar on the upper west side of Manhattan. They had a sign out front advertising the "Funniest Unemployed Comic" contest. As I happened to be unemployed at the time, Beck dared me to enter. It seemed harmless enough. Three minutes onstage telling jokes. I'd been onstage tons of times back with my old band the Charismatics and even more during my solo-folkie period. And how hard could it be to write a few jokes? I'm a funny guy. Piece of cake.

Not so fast, Monkey Boy! First of all, being onstage with a band is one thing. Going solo is a whole other deal. I had conveniently forgotten how difficult it was when I made the transition from rhythm guitarist in a rock band to singer-songwriter in a coffee house. No drummer to keep time. No bass. No lead singer. Just little old me. Those first few gigs were terrifying. But I got used to the drill and eventually I was an old hand. Why should comedy be any different?

Here's why: Because when you play a song, the most you expect is some polite applause at the end. And the fact is, getting an audience to applaud is pretty easy. They want to applaud anyway, so all you have to do is make sure they know when to do it. If you end your song in a very clear and obvious way, I guarantee half the audience will clap -- if only out of pure Pavlovian reflex.

When you tell a joke, on the other hand, there is a whole different expectation. You want them to laugh. And that means you need to be funny. And as any comic will tell you, "Dying is easy, comedy is hard."

The good thing about comedy is that the audience wants to laugh. They came there to laugh. All you have to do is provide the opportunity. And that's why my number one rule of comedy is: "Always put the punchline at the end of the joke." That way the audience will know exactly when they should laugh. Sounds simple, right? Yet you'd be surprised how many people tell jokes where the punchline gets buried somewhere in the middle and then they keep going. Meanwhile the audience is confused and suddenly the joke is over and nobody knows what to do.

The other thing about comedy is that it's really just talking. And talking is something I've been doing most of my life. I definitely know how to talk. I may not know how to sing or play the guitar, but I've got this talking thing down pat. So all I gotta do is write some funny jokes, get up there on stage and talk. Oh, except for one other thing. I have to remember the jokes. That shouldn't be so hard, since I am used to remembering the lyrics to hundreds of songs. But here's the thing: songs rhyme. That's a little trick invented several thousand years ago when nobody knew how to write. Make stuff rhyme and it's easier to remember. But my jokes didn't rhyme.

Also, I was terrified.

See, we happened to be in an election year and unemployment was a big issue. (Not like now.) So when the media found out there was going to be a contest for the Funniest Unemployed Comic, they pounced on it like a Congressman on an intern. The New York Times was there. The three major networks were there. CNN was there. The Goddamn BBC was there! There was a bank of TV cameras lined up against the wall and two or three tables full of journalists right down front. How's that for a little pressure your first time doing stand-up?

The house was packed. And some of the other comics were actually pretty damn good. A few of them were obviously pros. I may have been the only stand-up virgin in the bunch. I felt dizzy and sick and I was sweating like Nixon on acid. I couldn't remember my own name, much less my three-minute set. When we did a run-through I took the mike off the stand and prowled the stage Carlin-style. Not because I was trying to emulate my hero, but because my legs were shaking so much from unbridled fear that I literally could not stand still. But when it came time for the actual show, we were told we needed to stand directly in front of the mike so the TV cameras could keep us in frame. I was vibrating like a jackhammer. I could barely recall the words to my first joke. I somehow managed to croak it out.

And then a miracle happened. Everybody LAUGHED! It was a big, room-sized laugh too, not some polite ha-ha shit. I was transformed. I felt powerful and brilliant. I was still shaking uncontrollably, sweating buckets, reeling with nausea and straining to remember every single word. But I was loving it. What a rush. I scored with joke after joke. I killed. The TV cameras rolled. The journalists scribbled. Jaded cocktail waitresses smiled involuntarily. It was heaven.

I even got one of my jokes broadcast on CNN. It was about how hard it was to look for work and how I had finally given up trying to find a real job and decided to become a candidate for President. Trust me, at the time, with something like 19 Democrats in the race, the joke was replete with biting political satire. And it got me national exposure as a stand up comic. I even heard Jay Leno do a ripoff of the same joke a few nights later. I figured I was at the beginning of a new career. And it was so easy, you know, except for the queasiness, convulsions, dehydration and partial stroke.

I never did become a famous stand-up comic. Back in the nineties, apparently, every other misfit wannabe Seinfeld with approval issues decided to become stand-up too. The field became glutted. Jerry Seinfeld eventually became the new King of Comedy and soon every comic wanted his own sitcom. They even gave George Carlin a sitcom. But he wasn't suited to the format. Too confining.

At some point a bunch of morons started circulating emails featuring racist and right-wing type comments and attributing them to George. It pissed me off to think that most people who read them wouldn't know the difference. They didn't understand that George's humor had more to it than just making fun of annoying things or stupid people. George was out to enlighten us. Humor can be one of the most powerful mind-expanding tools around, when used by a master. And it doesn't have to be highbrow or "thinky" to do it.

"Shitpissfuckcuntcocksuckermotherfuckertits!"

There aren't many folks around who know how to use humor the way George did. He was like the John Lennon of comedy. I will always carry with me the lessons I learned while laughing at the things George said. I think comedy is one of the best things in life. And George made comedy even better.So, from one class clown to another: Thanks George. See you in detention.

Wesleyland

2008-06-16T17:25:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago one of the most important political figures in American history gave a speech in my backyard. Of course when I say my backyard, I don't mean that literally, since my current backyard is an alley in West Hollywood frequented by gay hustlers, vagrants and aluminum can collectors. What I am referring to is a place where I will always feel at home no matter how long I stay away, a place I feel connected to in many different ways, a place where I have a special history and which holds strong memories. It is a magical place, a mythical place, a place like no other. It is a place I call Wesleyland.

Officially, of course the name of this mythical land is Wesleyan University. It was founded in 1831 as a Methodist school for young men, but has since become known as one of the most prestigious and progressive universities in the world. It is physically located in Middletown, Connecticut which is the main reason I have such a strong connection to the place. My great-grandfather, Emmanuel "Manny" Eastman is buried in Pine Grove Cemetery in Middletown. My grandparents, Oscar and Agnes, met in Middletown. Oscar worked at the Wilcox-Crittenden factory in Middletown making marine hardware. My father, Warren and uncle Bob attended Middletown High School and both graduated from Wesleyan. I went to Wesleyan and so did my sister Susan. My nephew Chris was born in Middletown at the same hospital where my Dad was born. Susan has lived in Middletown for almost twenty years. My nephew John grew up there.

Even when I was a kid, back in Louisville, Wesleyan held a special place in my imagination. On Thanksgiving, we ate our turkey on a set of Wesleyan china, each plate featuring a different landmark from the Wesleyan campus, like Olin Library, Memorial Chapel or South College. In the summer we visited my Dad's relatives in Middletown. I still remember walking around campus in the early 70's when revolution was in the air. I knew the names of the buildings from our Thanksgiving plates. We toured the old science buildings where my Dad studied chemistry. We saw the pool where he swam on the swim team. The Wesleyan campus was an exciting mixture of old and new, familiar and strange, fantasy and reality.

But my favorite part of campus was the large open grassy field bounded by the administration buildings on the east, Fayerweather Gymnasium on the north, Olin library on the south and Foss Hill to the west. Known as Andrus Field, to me it will always be my "backyard" and the center of Wesleyland.

Back in the day, Andrus Field held an old cinder running track, a baseball diamond, and a football field with removable wooden bleachers. Students could sit on the terraced lawn behind Olin Library and watch an intramural softball game, play Frisbee on the football field, jog a few laps on the cinder track, or maybe just sit under the shade of one of the hundred year old maple trees on Foss Hill and enjoy the scenery. Nowadays the track and baseball diamond are gone, but the field still gets plenty of use. Like hosting the commencement ceremonies

When Barack Obama stood on the marble podium that rises from center of the terraced lawn, there were over 20,000 people gathered on Andrus field and Foss Hill to hear him speak. Including my parents and my sister. The biggest crowd ever recorded prior to that was 8,000 people for Wesleyan's 175th anniversary two years ago. Although I've heard that when the Grateful Dead played a free concert on Andrus Field in 1970, the place was pretty packed.

My first two years at Wesleyan, I lived in a dorm called West College which was nestled among a grove of trees on the north slope of Foss Hill. I crossed Andrus Field hundreds of times going to and from classes or over to Fayerweather Gymnasium. I ran numerous laps on the cinder track and did many a hill sprint up Foss Hill. Our cross country races began and ended at the foot of Foss Hill. Andrus Field was the scene of many official gatherings, such as Spring Fling and of course Commencement. But it was also the site of a lot of unofficial activities, like the legendary Communal Moan. In the winter we "borrowed" trays from the dining hall and used them as makeshift snowboards to slide down Foss Hill. This was years before any of us ever saw an actual snowboard.

It was during those carefree days of curiosity and experimentation that I first came up with the concept of "Wesleyland". The atmosphere at Wesleyan was so conducive to learning, growth, experimentation, and discovery that I began to see the campus less as an institution of higher learning and more like a kind of intellectual theme park. There were so many amazing things to learn, do, and experience. And as students, we were free to pick and choose whatever struck our interest. And the thing I noticed about so many of my fellow students was that they all had so many different interests and abilities. You might meet someone who was a pre-med and think of them as a "squid", a term applied to boring nerds who spent all their time studying. But the next time you saw the squid he might be playing mridungam in an avant-garde jazz ensemble. And then later the same squid might be covered with mud and tearing up the rugby field. You soon learned not to take anyone, or anything at face value.

It was not long before I realized that, although my classes were excellent and the professors of the highest caliber, I was learning as much from my fellow students as I was from my courses. There were specific examples, like my sophomore roommate Terry who introduced me to jazz, showed me how to play guitar and taught me calculus. But there were also the non-specific lessons, like my friend Andy who showed me how to take a negative situation and convert it into a positive one. Or Kevin, who taught me how to think like a writer. My friend Sindi taught me how to always be myself. Mitch taught me how to live in the moment. Nancy taught me about love.

Even after I left Wesleyan, I continued to learn from the people I met there. After graduation, during my year in Pacific Beach with Bob, I learned a lot about self-confidence. Dan has always been an example of professionalism and hard work. Dave has given me hope. Mark showed me about resilience and character. Joel was my healer and guru. Jon taught me how to feel.

When we all met each other at Wesleyan, we were students. But we were also something else. We were teachers, too. I think we will always be students, just as we will always be teachers. It's the primary function in life, to learn and to teach. I think that's what I found out at Wesleyland. And that's one of the reasons I found it so fitting to see Barack Obama speaking in my backyard two weeks ago. Obama is a great student of the human condition and he inspires people to learn more about themselves and each other. And he teaches by example that we can all continue to improve ourselves and the world around us through knowledge and understanding and passion for learning. A great leader is one who serves. And to serve is to learn.

I still have so much to learn. And the whole world is my Wesleyland.

The Marathon

2008-05-15T17:48:00.000-07:00

Probably one of the most defining events of my life is the marathon that I ran my senior year of high school. In those days running was a pretty big part of my identity. I began running not long after my ten-speed bike was stolen right out of our front yard. That was a pretty earth-shattering experience -- to think that the criminal element had penetrated our sheltered suburban bubble on the outskirts of Louisville. But in a way, having my bike stolen opened up a whole new world to me. I became a runner.

I still remember the first time I tried to run a mile. My lungs felt scorched, my muscles ached, my feet were on fire. Apparently running was not quite as easy as pedaling. My friend Mark Bush had challenged me to go out for the cross country team with him. The team held practices over the summer in preparation for the fall season. I was trying to get in shape so I could keep up with the team. I had a long way to go.

That summer Mark moved to Lexington, so when I reported to the first practice I didn't think I would know anyone. But as it turns out, one of my classmates, Lou Armstrong, was a longtime cross-country runner. He introduced me to some of the other guys. Gary Steier was another familiar face, I had met him through Mark. Another kid, named Tommy Pfau, became something of a running yoda to the rest of us. He was immersing himself in the art of distance running and would be one of the main advocates of training for the marathon the following year.

And then there was Ray. A transfer student from across town, Ray was kind of an enigma. During the early days of summer practice, Ray often seemed to be struggling at the back of the pack, clutching his glasses in one hand and complaining of "lactic acid" build-up in his massive thighs. Eventually, Ray would become one of my closest friends as well as a world-class athlete.

That year our team won the state championship, due to a stellar lineup of seniors who had been training together for years. Lou was also among the top runners. Ray, too, had made amazing 'strides' to break into the varsity squad his first season out. In cross country, a team of seven runners competes, but only the top five finishers actually score. Their place determines their individual score: first place scores one point, second place two, and so on. The top five scores are added together and the lowest team score wins.

Senior year, due to the loss of most of our best runners, I moved onto the varsity squad. Fortunately I had kept up my training and was fairly competitive by the beginning of the season. Much of that had to do with the influence of Tommy Pfau and his doctrine of distance.

Basically, according to Tommy, the best way to improve your running was to run, and to run a lot. Ten miles a day was our average, with several thirteen milers per week. Whereas during the season, we would be focusing on shorter, faster workouts, all summer long we went for distance, distance, distance. The culmination of our summer of distance was a twenty mile run that remains one of my most cherished memories, in part because it was so much fun. We were already gearing up for the marathon that was scheduled a few weeks after the end of cross-country season. But first we had a championship to defend.

The day of the state meet the weather was cold and rainy. About fifty yards from the starting line there was a huge puddle about a foot deep that covered the entire width of the course for a good 20-30 yards. It was quite a rude shock to have to splash through all that frigid water at the start of a race. Not the best way to stay loose and warmed-up.

We were favored to win the meet since we had defeated every team on our schedule that year, including our arch rivals Trinity and St. Xavier. Trinity and "X" were the two all-male Catholic schools in our area and had always been our toughest competition. But we had our share of talent, including returning champs Lou Armstrong and Dale Sirrine, the indefatigable Ray Sharp, distance guru Tom Pfau and newcomer Jim Brill. Jim was the younger brother of one of our departed seniors who in a very short time had become one of our top scorers. I had managed to carve out a place for myself in the top seven, which entitled me to compete in the state meet.

Talent, however, will only get you so far. After that you need experience. And experience was something we were lacking. The harsh conditions of the race took their toll on our young team. Unfamiliar terrain, slippery wet grass, driving rain and bitter wind threw us off our game. We struggled to do our best, but the boys from Trinity and "X" were made of sterner stuff.

As I came up the final hill to round the bend for the long sprint back through the giant puddle to the finish line, I found myself closing in on Jim Brill. I was confused. Jim was usually one of our top three scorers. There was no way I should be anywhere near him. But here he was, face twisted in a painful grimace, hand clutching his side, urging me to pass him. But I couldn't. He was way better than I was. It didn't make sense.

Our team finished third that year, not a terrible showing, but we really should have won. I don't know how much difference it would have made if I had been able to break out of my self-imposed paralysis and pass Jim at the end. I might have lowered our score. Maybe we could have taken second. Maybe not.

The disappointment of our poor performance in the state meet only lasted a couple of weeks, though, because we now had another goal ahead of us: the marathon.

In a way, the entire cross country season was only a prelude to the marathon. This was to be the first marathon held in Louisville and we were psyched. We had all competed in the annual Derby-week mini marathon, but this was the real deal. However, the cross country season had also served as a diversion from training for the marathon. At least it had for me. The team had been focusing on increasingly shorter workouts at faster paces as we neared the end of the season in order for us to "peak" at the state meet. And in fact, I had "peaked" at the state meet, running one of my fastest races ever, despite the bad conditions. I had no doubt that I could run the marathon, but I hadn't been doing the kind of training that would allow me to run my best race. Still, I'd put in a couple of weeks of long runs between the state meet and the marathon and I felt ready.

The day of the big race was cool and overcast, which was actually just what we wanted. It's easy to overheat when you run 26 miles. A nice cool day is ideal. I ran with Tommy. We had done a lot of miles together and our running styles were very compatible. Plus I knew that Tommy had a race plan and I figured I would just tag along and follow his lead. In a long race you have to have plan and the discipline to stick to it. The first half of the race, when you are feeling good, you will tend to run faster than you should. You need to hold back a little to save your strength for the second half. Likewise, in the second half, you will feel tired and will tend to slow down, so you have to make sure you run a little faster than you want to. I knew Tommy would keep me on pace.

What I didn't know was that, unlike the rest of us, Tommy had been training for the marathon right through cross country season. He had been going out on his own after our team practices and putting in additional distance work. On the day of the marathon he was in peak condition for the long race. And we were just flying along.

I didn't realize just how fast we were going until the halfway mark, when I heard the the times being read out loud as we went by the checkpoint. We had covered the first thirteen miles in about an hour and twenty minutes. That's faster than I had run the same distance in the mini-marathon the previous spring.

"Whoa," I said to Tommy, "aren't we going a little fast?"

He shook his head. "Nope, right on pace."

That's when I realized that Tommy had a plan all right. He was planning on setting the national record for his age-group. He was a year younger than I was and the record was somewhere around 2:45. And at this pace he was going to break it.

I had no intention of setting any records. All I wanted to do was finish the race and try and break the three hour barrier that separates the men from the boys in marathon racing. But I felt great so I kept going alongside Tommy for another four or five miles.

Then I hit the wall.

You hear a lot about "hitting the wall" in marathon racing. It's when you reach the point where you have completely used up every bit of energy you body has stored and you literally have nothing left to go on. But hearing about it and experiencing it are two very different things. First of all when you hit the wall, you immediately understand why they call it hitting the wall. It's as if you slammed into an invisible plane, on one side of which you are a normal healthy individual engaged in a fairly stressful, but tolerable activity. On the other side, however, there is only misery, pain, exhaustion, weakness, and insanity.

I hit the wall around mile eighteen, which is a fairly common point to do so. Apparently human bodies can handle just about anything for eighteen miles. But go one step further and WHAM! Pain City. It's like someone took a ball peen hammer and reduced every bit of your muscle fiber to useless shreds of meat. Then they inserted a spinal tap and drained you of all essential fluids and electrolytes. Without electrolytes, your brain is like a computer with zero RAM memory. You simply cannot function. Your joints have been surgically removed and replaced with jello. You lungs have been stuffed with sawdust. All you want to do is collapse and weep like a fool. But of course you cannot weep because you are completely dehydrated.

And you still have eight miles to go.

Quitting was just not an option. I had worked too hard to fulfill this dream. And what I lack in foresight, I make up for with sheer bull-headedness. I just kept running.

This was quite a lonely stretch of the race. People had gotten pretty spaced out by now and I was in a daze, running an endless loop. Occasionally I had to stop and walk, but not for too long. There were a few aid stations along the way where I gulped down water and Gatorade. But I knew all too well that these attempts at replenishment were futile. It was far too late for them to do me any good. You need to take aid at the beginning of the race for it to have any effect. Whatever I was drinking at this point would only sit in my stomach unprocessed until the race was over. But it still felt good to stop and drink something.

Meanwhile, in order to keep myself going, I had a secret weapon. Her name was Mary.

I'd had a crush on Mary since I saw her walk into English class the first day of sophomore year. But Mary was way out of my league. She was captain of the cheerleaders and dated the captain of the basketball team. I was just a nerdy cross country runner. But besides being beautiful and smart, Mary was also very cool. We eventually became buddies. I even took her to a dance once. It was one of the greatest nights of my life. She never made me feel awkward or stupid. She was the perfect woman.

As it turned out, Mary's father worked for a company that was sponsoring the marathon. Mary had said she would be working one of the aid stations along the race route. I hadn't seen her yet, so I knew she must still be up ahead. I couldn't let Mary see me hobbling along in agony and defeat, so anytime I rounded a bend I picked up my pace a little just in case she was there. Mary kept me going mile after mile. Call it pride or delusion or teenage lust, but Mary was my beacon. And I never stopped.

Nor did I ever see Mary. She never made it to the race. Something else had come up. Probably just as well, the thought of basking in the glow of her lovely smile as she handed me a cup of orange Gatorade is what kept me moving forward. Seeing her might have broken the spell.

I never did find out my official time in the marathon. My number got lost in the shuffle. My Dad was watching the clock, though, when I came across the finish and he said my time was 3:11. That's a pretty respectable time for a first marathon, but I didn't break the magic three hour barrier. If I had run a smarter race, I would have broken it easily. But it didn't matter. I had done it, I had finished. And I had overcome much greater difficulties than I could have possibly imagined. I knew a lot more about myself now. I knew that no matter how tough things get, I will never give up.

Tommy set the national record for his age group, beating the previous record by several minutes. He was on fire that day. We both ended up going to Wesleyan and running on the cross country team together. I never did run another marathon. At least not yet.

But the lesson of the marathon has always stayed with me. It has to do with believing in yourself no matter what happens. And persevering when you have a goal, despite the obstacles.

I haven't seen Mary for years. Ray and I visited her once when she was at UNC. She was as wonderful as ever. I spoke to her on the phone last year when I called my friend Gary at our high school reunion. She sounded great. That Louisville accent just melts me. I never did tell her what a big part she played in what has become one of my most important accomplishments. Maybe someday I will.

Pretty soon I will reach the ten year anniversary of my arrival in Hollywood. At times my dream of becoming a screenwriter seems a lot like running a marathon. Only with no end in sight. But I know I can keep going. And I know that I will reach my goal. Even if I hit the wall.

Hollywood Dick

Wag The Dog

Both Sides Now

Home Sweet Home

Nail Soup

Hollywood Dick's 169th Dream

Fuck Off Day

CARMAGEDDON!

Technology

Sidney Lumet

Acting!

Lent

Cairo

The Scorpion

Change

Giving Thanks

Vanity

Divine Comedy

In Your Dreams

The Park

Conservatism

Factotum

Merlin

Feedback

Sugar Mountain

Christmas Moon

Kerouac

Holy Grail

Albion House

Mullis!

"I am (not) a racist."

Man on the Moon

The 'Bu

Angels & Demons

It's No Secret

The Walker

Eyes Wide Open

B*U*l*l*S*H*i*t

Synecdoche, New York

The Color Purple

Mile Swim

Echoes of the Mekong

The Alley

Class Clown

Wesleyland

The Marathon

BUllSHi*t